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MOUNTAINEERS 




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THE 
SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 




From "Frye's Geography." 



By courtesy of Ginn & Co., Boston. 



The Southern Appalachians. 



THE SOUTHERN 
MOUNTAINEERS 



BY 

SAMUEL TYNDALE WILSON, D.D. 

ti 
PRESIDENT OF MARYVILLE COLLEGE 
AND 
STATED CLERK OF THE SYNOD OF TENNESSEE 



Literature Department 

Presbyterian Home Missions 

156 Fifth Avenue, New York City 

1914 



FZ/0 



Copyright, 1914, by 
The Board of Home Missions 

OF THE 

Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 



Printed by 

J. J. Little & Ives Co. 

New York 

OCT 20 1914 

'CI.A387108 



FOREWORD 

The field of the American Church extends over our 
entire land. It includes city, town, village, and coun- 
try, throughout the North, the South, the East, and 
the West. Every division of this wide field is in- 
tensely interesting to the loyal Christian. No other 
part of the field appeals to the heart with more ro- 
mantic interest than does that included in the southern 
Appalachians. In this little book the story of the 
southern mountaineers is told by one who has been 
all his lifetime identified with them, and loves them, 
and has been their ready champion whenever occa- 
sion offered. The Board is glad to have the story so 
authoritatively and sympathetically presented to the 
Church at large. — First Edition, 1906. 



REVISION 

The Board of Home Missions has taken advan- 
tage of the call for a fourth edition of 'The Southern 
Mountaineers" to ask the author to revise the book 
in order to incorporate in it the results of the census 
of 1910, and a statement of the changes that have 
taken place in the mountain field and in the work of 
our church in that field during the past eight years. 
In compliance with this request, the author has writ- 
ten into the present revised edition the matters re- 
ferred to, together with the results of his own con- 
tinued study of the general subject involved. 

The value of the revised edition has, moreover, 
been greatly increased by the generous permission 
accorded the author by Mr. John C. Campbell, Secre- 
tary of the Southern Highland Division of the Sage 
Foundation, to make free use of the facts and sta- 
tistical data of his unpublished study of the Southern 
Highland region. The personal, thorough-going, and 
scholarly investigation of the southern mountain prob- 
lem that Mr. Campbell has been carrying forward un- 
der the auspices of the Sage Foundation during the 
past six years is the most important contribution yet 
made to an exact and scientific knowledge of the 
facts involved in that problem. The principal use 

vii 



viii REVISION 

here made of the material embodied in the study has 
been in further illustration of the conclusions reached 
in the former edition. In one important particular, 
however, the author has changed his former letter- 
press to conform with Mr. Campbell's conclusions; 
namely, he has adopted the larger bounds assigned to 
the Southern Appalachian Province. 

The Board of Home Missions expresses its hearty 
and grateful appreciation of the courtesy of Mr. 
Campbell, and is glad to be allowed to give advance 
currency to some of the conclusions of his epoch- 
making study. The Board also thanks the many 
friends in our own and other churches who have 
used and often generously commended 'The South- 
ern Mountaineers." It is hoped that this revised 
edition also will be useful in guiding Christian patriots 
in their study of the southern highlanders. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS. Rocky Moun- 
tain System — Appalachian Mountain System — 
Northern Appalachians — Southern Appalachians 
— Their Extent — Scenery — Climate — Products 
AND Resources — Population — Seclusion ... 1 

II. THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS. A Composite 
Stock — Principally Scotch-Irish — Other Strains 
— Scotch-Irish Evolution — "Transplantation op 
Ulster " — Londonderry Patronymics — Roose- 
velt's Tribute — A Virile Lineage — Race Registry 
— ^Three Classes of Mountaineers: (1) Class One 
Is Helping — (2) Class Two Will Help — (3) Class 
Three Needs Help — Modifications of These 
Classes — Many Men of Many Kinds — "Mountain- 
eers," not "Mountain Whites" 11 

III. THE SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS. The 

Nation's Frontiersmen — Established Christian- 
ity, Protestantism, Democracy, Civil Govern- 
ment, AND Education — Service to the Nation — 
Share in the Revolution — Kings Mountain — 
Sons, Daughters of the Revolution — War of 1812 
AND Mexican War — Civil War — Spanish- American ^^'^ 
War — Service of Emigrants and Individuals . . 26 

IV. THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM. Dixie's Two 

Problems — Black Problem — White Problem — 
Problem and Its Peculiarities: (1) American, (2) 
Protestant, (3) White, (4) Country, (5) Varied 
AND Complex, (6) Delicate — Wanted, Tact and "1(f| 
More Tact — Not Wanted, "Missionaries" — (7) ^^m 
Urgent 42 

V. THE MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING. 

How They Became Mountaineers: (1) Hunting 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

AND Fishing Attractive — (2) Only Land Available 
— (3) Few "Outlaws" — (4) Influence of Slavery 
— (5) Mountain Fecundity — Why Remain in Moun- 
tains? (1) Few Do Migrate — (2) Inertia Hinders 
— (3) Local Attachment — (4) Ambition Dormant — 
(5) Timidity Dominant — (6) Precedent Lacking — 
(7) Poverty Prevents — So, Populous Mountains . 54 

VI. THE PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING. Problem 
Restated — Some In Statu Quo Ante — Reasons fob 
Problem: (1) Lack of Live Neighbors — (2) Of 
Varied Society — (3) Of Incentive to Labor — (4) 
Of Trade — (5) Of Means of Communication — (6) 
Of Money — (7) Of Schools — Educational Statis- 
tics — (8) Of Books — (9) Of Educated Leaders — 
Mormonism — Devolution Versus Evolution . . 65 

VII. PIONEER PRESBYTERIANISM AND THE PROB- 
LEM. Presbyterians Were Dominant — Presby- 
terians Were Active — Founded Churches — 
Founded Schools — Founded Colleges — Helped 
Found State — And Were Successful — And Their 
Work Abides 79 

VIII. LATER PRESBYTERIANISM AND THE PROB- 
LEM. Causes of Presbyterianism's Partial Fail- 
ure: (1) Decay of Education — (2) Territory Too 
Vast — (3) Ministers Too Few — (4) No Mission 
Boards — (5) Many Ministers Went West — But 
Workers Did Their Utmost — Southern and West- 
ern Theological Seminary — (6) Divisions of Pres- 

BYTERIANISM — OtHER DENOMINATIONS — SoME UN- 
CHURCHED Neighborhoods — The Post-Pbesbyterian 
Age 86 

IX. PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM AND THE 
PROBLEM. How Solve Problem? (1) By Devel- 
opment of Economic Life — (2) By Perfecting of 
Public Schools — (3) By Multiplying of Uplift 
Agencies — What Is the Mission of Our Church? 
(1) To Preach to Every Creature — (2) To Dis- 
charge Debt to Brethren — (3) To Help Other 
Denominations — (4) To Employ Usual Methods — 
(5) But, Principally, to Educate — Supplementing 
State Education — Education the Open Sesame — 



CONTENTS xi 

chapter page 
Educate the Leaders — With Education Wide- 
VisioNED — And Pay Debt to Other Churches — 
And Stimulate Them to Similar Educational 
Work — Thus, More Light 96 

X. THE DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER COMMU- 
NITY CENTERS. A Notable Uplift System — And 
Notable Builders Thereof — An Adjusting Uplift 
System — The Center, Its Genesis — Conditions of 
the Renaissance: (1) A Model Home— (2) The 
Workers' Consecrated Lives — (3) The Open Book 
World — (4) Training In Home-Making — (5) In- 
dustrial Training — (6) Community Welfare Cam- 
paigns — (7) Bible Study — (8) Moral and Religious 
Training — Results: (1) Community Aroused — (2) 
Old People Helped — (3) Young People Trans- 
formed — (4) Usually, Church Established — Tes- 
timony OF A Visitor — Statistics . . . . 109 

XL THE BOARDING-SCHOOLS AND LARGER COM- 
MUNITY CENTERS. The Strategic County Seat 
— Presbyterial Academies — Academies and Board- 
iNG-ScHooLs — Worthy of the Kirk of Knox — 
Policy and Purpose — Service Rendered — Future 
Service — Twofold Equipment — Girls Need Help 
Most — The Colleges of the Synods — Stockdale 
Memorial — Pikeville College — Witherspoon Col- 
lege — Harlan Industrial — Langdon Memorial — 
Mossop Memorial — Harold McCormick School — 
Favored Old North State — Dorland Institute — 
Bell Institute — Burnsville Academy — Laura Sun- 
derland Memorial — Asheville Schools — Where 
THE Graduates Go 123 

XII. THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS. Ideal Location- 
Rich Investment — Fourfold Object — (1) The 
Pease Memorial House — Little People — Large 
Work — (2) The Home Industrial School: The 
Hand of Providence — The Devotion of the 
Founders — The Scope of the School — The Support 
of the School — (3) The Farm School: Its Develop- 
ment — Its Design — Its Rich Fruitage — (4) The 
Normal and Collegiate Institute: "The Key- 
stone School" — Its Plant — Its Clientage — Its 
Teachers — Its Courses of Study — "Home-Making" 
— Religious Life — The Outcome 140 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII. APPALACHIAN POWER. Problem, Power, Promise 
— "Power" a Popular Theme — Mountains are 
Power-Plants — Appalachian Power — Natural 
Power — Water Power — Steam Power — Mineral 
Resources — Timber Supply — Farm Products — Vi- 
tal Energy — Vast Extent of this Power — Above 
All, Human Power — In Numbers — In Unity in 
Variety — In Strength of Race — In Strength of 
Body — In Strength of Mind — In Pure American- 
ism — In Spirit of Independence — In Fervent Pa- 
triotism — In Sturdy Protestantism — In Strong 
Religious Nature — In Simple Faith — In Strong 
Will — In Supreme Self-Confidence — This Power 
Pent-Up — And Must be Released .... 152 

XIV. APPALACHIAN PROMISE. A Fourfold Promise— 
(1) Natural Power Developed — Enriching Appa- 
LACHiA — Enriching America — (2) Manhood: Human 
Power Developed — By Material Progress — By 
Educational Advance — (3) Christian: Religious 
Problem Solved — God's Love for Mountains — No 
Irremediable Evils — What Prevents Will Remedy 
— What Sleeps Will Awake — Rapid Rehabilita- 
tion — Ready Assimilation — Assistance from With- 
out — Development from Within — (4) National: 
Future Nation- Wide Service — Home Guards for 
Appalachia — Reinforcements for America — Con- 
tributing Social Service — Prohibition Appalachia 
— Heroic Fighting — Victorious Fighting — Fight- 
ing Blood — Contributing Christian Faith — Con- 
tributing Christian Workers — Contributing 
Christian Reserves — In the Nick of Time — Kept 
FOR THE Master's Use — Inspiring View — Problem 
Versus Power and Promise — The Appalachian 
Providence 172 

APPENDIX. Statistical Tables of the Presbyterian 
(U. S. A.) School and Community Work in the Synods of 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia for the Year 
1913; AND OF THE Sabbath-School Department of the 
Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work; and of 
THE Regular Church Work for 1913 197 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Southern Appalachians Frontispiece -^ 

opposite page 
The Hills of Heaven and the Hills of Earth .... 6 

Men of the Mountains 18 ' 

A Grandmother Who Wanted a School for Her People . 34 

A Mountain Home 48 

Hitting the Trail 62 - 

"The Knobs" 72^ 

The Elizabeth Boyd Memorial, Oakland Heights Presby- 
terian Church, Asheville, N. C 82 ' 

Where Presbyterian Work for Southern Mountaineers 
Began in 1879 90 

On the Way to Visit Pupils' Homes 102 

School and Teachers' Home, Jewett, Tennessee . . .114 

The Borland Institute, Hot Springs, N. C 128 

The Laura Sunderland Memorial School 136 ^ 

The Asheville Home School 144 

The Normal and Collegiate Institute, Asheville, N. C. . 148 

The Asheville Farm School for Boys 158 '-^ 

Missionary Home and Church, Jarrold's Valley, W. Va. . 168 

"The Willows," the Boys' Home at Borland Institute, 

Hot Springs, N. C 192 



The Southern Mountaineers 

CHAPTER I 
The Southern Appalachians 

Relief maps of the United States show two ex- 
tensive mountain systems traversing the country 
northward and southward on lines approximately 
parallel to the Mississippi River. 

In the West the great Rocky Mountains and the 

Sierras lift eleven states to their own lofty elevation, 

and to a large extent decide the 

The Rocky character of the industries of the 

Mountain System ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^at occupy those 

states. The course of empire has pushed irresistibly 
into, among, and over these mountains, until now al- 
most every nook of them has been occupied in the in- 
terests of mining, lumbering, cattle-raising, farming, 
manufacturing, and health-seeking. That to which 
Daniel Webster once referred contemptuously as a 
desert has come to be regarded by the world as an 
exhaustless storehouse of wealth and health. 

In the East, corresponding to the Rockies of the 
West, there stretches another less massive and yet 

I 



2 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

very noble mountain system, the worthy counterpart 
of the sister system of the Occident. While second to 

the Rocky Mountains, the Appa- 
The Appalachian i^chians are not second to the Al- 
Mountain System ^ . ^ . . 

pme system of Europe, for the 

southern Appalachians alone have a greater area than 
have the Alps. Geologists find the genesis of the sys- 
tem as far northeast as the hills of Newfoundland, 
and its exodus among the hills of northern Alabama. 
Within its limits the system embraces about 175,000 
square miles of mountain territory as against 980,000 
included in the Rocky Mountain system, exclusive of 
the Sierras. 

In the early history of our country the Appalachians 
were looked upon as the natural western limit of the 
country and the formidable enemy of all progress 
sunsetward. As population increased, however, moun- 
tain passes were discovered and highways established 
and natural and artificial waterways utilized, until 
the Allegheny barriers became only a difficulty to be 
overcome and a temporary hindrance to predestined 
advance. Ere long the mountains came to be ignored 
as soon as passed; when railroads completed the vic- 
tory of transportation and made easy the passage of 
these American Alps, the people almost forgot the 
mountains, and, to all intents, the Alleghenies ceased 
to be. The Rocky Mountains assumed, in their turn, 
the place of dread and importance, but the Appalach- 
ians, in slighted state, reigned on in their silence and 
isolation, awaiting the time of their rediscovery. 



THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS 3 

The northern Appalachians are not so compact or 
continuous or extensive as are their southern sisters; 
consequently, since they did not so 
The Northern seriously bar the progress of west- 

ppa ac la ward emigration, they were not so 

much dreaded, nor, when conquered, were they so 
much ignored. Their population was for the most 
part assimilated into the economic and social Ufe of 
the surrounding country./ The development of the 
coal industry in the Pennsylvanian Alleghenies con- 
tributed largely to the victory of society over the 
mountains, and even founded among them many im- 
portant and prosperous cities. The Green Mountains, 
the White Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Catskills, 
the Hudson Highlands, like the Pennsylvanian Alle- 
ghenies, are in social, economic, and political life 
either part and parcel of the commonwealths in which 
they lie, or are so much overrun by health-seekers, 
pleasure-hunters, and wealth-exploiters as to be per- 
force largely identified in culture and interests with 
the territory contiguous to them. 

The problems presented by the northern Appa- 
lachians have been in the main satisfactorily solved by 
the people of the states in which the mountains lie; 
though here and there retarded communities still ex- 
ist, good schools and the other agents of civilization 
have in the main equalized the culture of these sec- 
tions with that of the surrounding territory. The 
mountains in themselves naturally attract much at- 
tention, being located, as they are, so near the great 



4 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

centers of population. There is even an Appalachian 
Mountain Club, organized in the patriotic cycle of 
1876, to preserve the mountain forests and resorts, to 
provide accurate maps, and to publish scientific data 
respecting the northern Appalachians. 

The Appalachians south of Mason and Dixon's line 

extend from the southern border of Pennsylvania to 

the northern counties of Georgia 

The Southern ^^^ Alabama. They include the 

Appalachians , . , , , , 

mountam masses and the enclosed 

valleys and coves of nine states. The region they 
occupy is approximately six hundred miles long and 
two hundred miles wide. It may be subdivided in 
turn into three belts, which Mr. Campbell, of the 
Sage Foundation, bounds and names substantially as 
follows : ( I ) The eastern belt is the Blue Ridge belt, 
which includes the mountain ranges that lie between 
the Piedmont Plateau and the great central depres- 
sion of the Southern Appalachian Province or Sys- 
tem. (2) The Greater Appalachian Valley, or the 
Valley-Ridge belt, is the great central depression lying 
between the Blue Ridge belt on the southeast, and the 
Allegheny-Cumberland belt on the northeast. (3) The 
western belt is the Allegheny-Cumberland belt, and 
includes the Allegheny and Cumberland mountains and 
plateaus which lie between the aforementioned cen- 
tral depression and the western escarpment of the 
Cumberland plateau and the western boundary of 
West Virginia. 

Mr. Campbell has made a careful personal survey 
of the field, and has consulted with the geologists that 



THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS 5 

are authorities regarding the Appalachian region. As 
the result of his investigation of all the facts involved, 
he includes in the southern high- 
Their Extent ^^^^^ ^^^o hundred and forty- 

seven counties of eight states, as follows : forty-two 
of western Virginia, fifty-five of West Virginia, 
thirty-six of eastern Kentucky, forty-five of East Ten- 
nessee and of the eastern part of Middle Tennessee, 
twenty-three of western North Carolina, four of west- 
ern South Carolina, twenty-five of northern Georgia, 
and seventeen of northern Alabama. In view of the 
description of the southern Appalachians as given in 
the preceding paragraph, it is necessary for us to add 
the four mountain counties of Maryland to the two 
hundred and forty-seven counties enumerated above. 
Thus the field that we are considering may be said 
to consist of two hundred and fifty-one counties lo- 
cated in nine different states. The total area of these 
two hundred and fifty-one counties is 110,412 square 
miles, or about one third of the total area of the nine 
states in which the region lies ; and nearly one fourth 
the area of the eleven Southern states lying east of 
the Mississippi River. This area is much larger than 
that of England, Wales, and Scotland combined; over 
half as large as either Germany or France ; over twice 
as large as the empire state of New York ; and nearly 
one third larger than all New England together with 
New Jersey and Delaware. Indeed this mountain do- 
main of the South is imperial in its dimensions. ^ 

The scenery in the Appalachians is sublime in the 
extreme. The mountains increase in height as they 



6 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

fare southward, until in Carolina and Tennessee they 
tower six thousand feet heavenward. About twenty 
„ . « of them rise hig^her than Mount 

^ Washington, while the tragedy- 

crowned head of Mount Mitchell reaches an elevation 
of 6,711 feet above the sea. Their wooded summits, 
plateaus, declivities, and gorges present an endless 
variety of views that in many places rival in pictur- 
esqueness those seen in the most famous of mountain 
ranges. 

"The mountains like giants stand, 
To sentinel the enchanted land." 

The flora and the fauna of the northern temperate 
zone flourish as if in a national exhibit of a zone's 
riches. Peaks and ranges, cliffs and crags, cascades 
and waterfalls, laurel glade and fern brake, lie in a 
great silence broken only by the song of many birds 
and the shrill stridence of insistent insects. The 
charm of the mountains enthralls more and more those 
visitors that are familiar with them, until at least some 
sojourners would fain remain within their magic 
circle forever. 

The climate is equable and invigorating, the ozone- 
laden air being a tonic that to the initiated renders 

^, . ^,. the mountains an ideal health-re- 

Tneir Climate 4. tt uu • • t. j 

sort. Health is m every breeze and 

gushes from thousands of purest springs of free- 
stone and mineral waters. The section is fitted to be 
a playground and sanitarium for a great nation, and 
ere long will so be recognized. Many diseases yield 










> 

a 






THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS 7 

to the salubrious influences of the air and water and 

quiet. 

The cultivated sections in the great and fertile val- 
leys produce liberally the usual crops to be found in 
the central states, the staples being 
Their Products ^^^j-n and wheat. The purely 
and Resources j^ountain soil, sandy and light, 

yields more reluctant crops of corn and potatoes. 
Fruits flourish when cared for. North Carolina ap- 
ples are famous throughout the South. Hogs and cat- 
tle are produced in large numbers; and, were it not 
for sheep-killing dogs, the section might be the great- 
est sheep-raising country in the world. 

The natural resources of the Appalachians are al- 
most limitless. A king's ransom is in every county, 
if it were only collected. The water power is almost 
incalculable. The forests are rich in timber of many 
varieties; and the earth is bursting with coal, iron, 
copper, zinc, salt, mica, lead, phosphate, and other 
minerals. Marble and other building stones are found 
in exhaustless store. The region in its scientific as- 
pect is one of richest interest to zoologist, entomolo- 
gist, botanist, dendrologist, geologist, and mineralo- 
gist; while in a practical way it is of most alluring 
attractiveness to the wide-awake prospector and in- 
vestor. 

The population of the region is collectively large, 

though popularly supposed to be small. In the two 

hundred and fifty-one counties that 

Their Population ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ southern Appalachian 

country, the census enumerators found in 1910 as 



8 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

many as 5,280,243 people. This grand total exceeds 
by a million people the population of the Pacific 
States — Washington, Oregon, and California — and 
doubles that of the Rocky Mountain region, called 
the Mountain Division by the Census Bureau ; namely, 
the eight commonwealths of Montana, Idaho, Wyo- 
ming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and 
Nevada. This large aggregate is scattered over so 
vast a territory that the average to the square mile 
is only forty-seven, a fact that shows that the teem- 
ing mountains are, after all, a somewhat sparsely set- 
tled part of the Union. The urban population of the 
section is so comparatively small that it does not 
greatly afifect the average. The Rocky Mountain Di- 
vision would, however, in comparison seem to be al- 
most uninhabited, for the average in that region is 
only three to a square mile! 

Collected in one body the mountaineers of the 
South would make one state somewhat larger than 
Ohio, or a state somewhat smaller than Illinois; or 
a city as large as Greater New York and Pittsburgh 
combined. On the other hand, it is interesting to 
note that the 14,555 square miles of Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, and Connecticut contain nearly as 
many inhabitants as do the southern Appalachians 
with their 110,412 square miles, an area more than 
seven times that of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 
Connecticut. 

The tide of western emigration, as has been said, 
flowed over the southern Appalachians, but ebbed 



THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS 9 

away from them as the advancing flood flowed west- 
ward. Domestic emigration and foreign immigration 
aUke pushed on toward the magic 
West. The Civil War served also 
to divert attention from the mountain ranges of the 
South. So the nation went on about its toil and ex- 
pansion, practically oblivious of one of its most valu- 
able possessions. The southern mountains were for 
a long time almost as much a terra incognita to the 
American people as was the far Northwest before the 
Lewis and Clark expedition. 

And as the entire section rested in seclusion from 
the nation's knowledge, so did each part of the purely 
mountain region live in practical isolation from the 
rest of the section. There were no pikes or well-built 
highways; oftentimes only bridle-paths led from set- 
tlement to settlement or from cabin to cabin. There 
are almost no natural lines of travel or transporta- 
tion, such as are so liberally afforded in the northern 
Appalachians by navigable rivers and lakes. For 
several hundred miles north and south no railroad 
crossed the mountains. Even at present there are a 
considerable number of counties that are not entered 
by a railroad. And during rainy seasons travel even 
by horseback is diflicult in the mountain recesses. To 
an extent that is hardly conceivable to their country- 
men that dwell in the midst of the twentieth century 
hurry and bustle, our southern hillsmen are undis- 
turbed and unaffected by that hurry and bustle. They 
call outsiders "furriners." They are marooned in the 
mountains. They are the latest Robinson Crusoes. 



10 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

Thus the mountaineer's horizon was limited by the 
summits that rose on every side, shutting him in from 
the rest of the nation and forcing him to find his 
world in his own small neighborhood. And so the 
mountains have merely rested in what Ruskin would 
call their "great peacefulness of light," unknown and 
unknowing so far as the outside world has been con- 
cerned. 



CHAPTER II 
The Southern Mountaineers 

Like the rest of Americans, the mountain people 
are of a composite race. There is probably no un- 
mixed strain of blood in any com- 
A Composite munity of the United States. 

Stock While it is true that family origin 

is not so important as is personal character, it is nev- 
ertheless true that heredity has much to do with ac- 
counting for that character, and merits consideration 
from every thoughtful student of history. 

While it is undeniable that the mountain people of 
the South are a composite race, the fact remains that 
they are probably of about as pure 
Principally ^ stock as we can boast in Amer- 

Scotch-Irish .^^ Almost all their ancestors 

came from the British Isles. The principal element 
is Scotch and especially Ulster-Scotch, more fa- 
miliarly known as Scotch-Irish. That this is the case 
is indisputably proved by history, by tradition, and 
by the family names prevailing in the mountains. All 
the region about the mountains was settled princi- 
pally by Scotch-Irish, the unbroken traditions of the 

II 



12 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

mountaineers agree that the majority of the pioneers 
were Scotch-Irish, while the names of the people are, 
throughout most of the section, fully fifty per cent, 
of them, Scotch or Scotch-Irish. It may be added, 
too, that there still survive most interesting phases 
of life and idioms of language that are Scotch or 
Scotch-Irish in origin. No argument based on the 
present condition of the mountaineers can suffice to 
render doubtful the cumulative proof of the prevail- 
ing strain in the mountain stock. 

There are also, especially in the valleys, numerous 
Huguenot names that once belonged to the noble peo- 
ple who were driven from France 

Other Strains u 4.u a.- £ 4.u -ca- a. £ 

by the revocation of the Edict of 

Nantes, and the dragonnades that followed that revo- 
cation. Most of these Huguenots came to the moun- 
tains by the way of Charleston and Savannah, the 
great Huguenot ports of entry for the South; while 
others came with the Scotch-Irish from Ulster where 
they had taken refuge. 

English, Welsh, and German names are also very 
numerous in the Appalachians, as is to be expected; 
though the German names are not of any recent im- 
migration, but rather may be traced back in many 
cases to "the Pennsylvania Dutch." Kentucky has 
more English names than do the other states of the 
Southern mountains. Occasionally the student of 
ethnology may stumble upon a community that is a 
puzzle, as, for example, that one occupied by the 
"Malungeons" of upper East Tennessee. I Our Church 
conducts successful work in two fields in this Malun- 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 13 

geon region. The people, whoever their ancestors 
may have been, are very responsive to good influ- 
ences. 

f In this composite race, then, the Scotch-Irish ele- 
ment largely predominates. And surely that fact lends 

an added interest to the study of 
Scotch-Insii ^j^g problem of the mountains, for 

Evolution ^, . . ,. . . . 

there is no sturdier element in 

American character than is that contributed by the 
Scotch-Irish. That the ''Plantation of Ulster," which 
took place as long ago as the days of James the First 
and Shakespeare, should directly and prevailingly 
affect the character and possibilities of the Atlantic 
highlands of America, is one of those interesting facts 
that emphasize both the romance and the philosophy 
of history. 

The Irish rebellion against Queen Elizabeth had 
been suppressed with relentless energy, and the con- 
fiscated estates of Ulster were peopled by the so-called 
"Plantation of Ulster." Protestant emigrants, mainly 
from the Scotch Lowlands but partly from London 
itself, at the command of King James took the places 
of the evicted Irish, and established the most in- 
tensely Protestant section of the British dominion. 
Scotch the colonists entered, and Scotch they re- 
mained in blood, for intermarriage with the Roman- 
ists was prohibited by law and by religion ; but Scotch- 
Irish they became, as we Americans usually call them, 
in consideration of their Irish home. 

At first they prospered greatly; but as early as 1633 
England began to maltreat them, violating her pledges 



14 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

and forfeiting her claims to their loyalty by a policy 
of perfidy and persecution. The English State de- 
spoiled the Ulster yeomanry, and the English ChurcH 
cropped the ears of the non-conforming Presbyteri- 
ans. But just as all of Laud's emissaries and Claver- 
house's dragoons could not force the Covenanters in 
old Scotland to conform to Episcopacy, so were all 
the acts and agents of Parliament unable to coerce the 
Scotch-Irish cousins of the Covenanters in their Ul- 
ster home. But so unbearable did their position be- 
come that there occurred what Dr. Mcintosh called 
a ''Transplantation of Ulster" to America and re- 
ligious freedom. Fiske, in his "Old Virginia and Her 
Neighbors," estimates that between 1730 and 1770 at 
least half a million souls, or more than half the Pres- 
byterian population of the north of Ireland, emigrated 
to the American colonies ; and that at the outbreak of 
the Revolution they made up one-sixth of the popu- 
lation of the colonies. In the New World, this pro- 
lific race became a nation-founding people. Their 
annals have been recorded by many historians and 
their achievements have made their history imperish- 
able. 

They landed at Boston, Philadelphia, and Charles- 
ton, and leaving behind them the seacoast and the 
colonies that had their established 
"Transplanta- religions, they advanced inland to 

tion of Ulster" , ^ •. .. r 1 • 

form a second tier of colonies. 

From Pennsylvania they pressed southward down the 
Shenandoah Valley and under the Blue Ridge till they 
spread out southeastward to meet the Charleston im- 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 15 

migrants, or pushed down southwestward past Abing- 
don into the valley of East Tennessee and up the trail 
of Daniel Boone into Kentucky. So advancing, they 
took possession of the mountains and valleys of the 
Appalachians. 

The gravestones in eastern Pennsylvania, in Vir- 
ginia, and in East Tennessee mark the successive mi- 
grations of some strong old Presbyterian families. 
These immigrants brought with them their Scotch- 
Irish convictions and characteristics branded into them 
by the fires of persecution. Their invasion of the 
mountains began in the latter part of the eighteenth 
century. 

During a recent visit to the north of Ireland, the 

writer took notes in Londonderry of such names on 

the business signs as are familiar 

P°tr T^Ts "^^^^ ^" ^^^ southern highlands of 

America. One of the first names 
noted down was "Brownlow," and it recalled to 
memory the fact that Parson Brownlow was accus- 
tomed to boast of his Scotch-Irish extraction. Then 
the names fairly trooped into the notebook. When, 
however, it appeared that the majority of the names 
encountered must be transcribed to the notebook, a 
more expeditious way of making and preserving the 
comparison was found in the securing and checking 
up of a directory of North Ireland that is published 
in Londonderry. On every Londonderry street the 
names and, indeed, the faces of the people demon- 
strated the identity of the Cis-Atlantic and Trans- 
Atlantic Scotch-Irish races. 



i6 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The writer asked Mr. Samuel Bogle, a stationer of 
Londonderry, what Christian names are most used in 
his family. To the great surprise of his questioner 
he replied that Samuel, James, John, Andrew, and 
Hugh are the names most commonly used by his kin- 
dred. Strange to say, the four adults of the Bogle 
family connected with the Eusebia Presbyterian 
Church, near Maryville, Tennessee, a few years ago, 
were Hugh, an honored elder, and his sons, James, 
John, and Andrew, while the father of Hugh, also 
an elder, had been named Samuel. In order to learn 
what traditions survived regarding the branch of the 
family that had generations ago emigrated to Amer- 
ica, the writer also called on the father of the Lon- 
donderry Samuel Bogle, and was startled at his close 
resemblance to the American Hugh Bogle, whose fu- 
neral services the writer had not long before con- 
ducted. 

Mr. Campbell, of the Sage Foundation, is naturally 
interested in the Campbell clan, and so was greatly 
pleased when informed, upon what seemed to be good 
authority, that one mountain county in Kentucky has 
several hundred Campbells within its borders. This 
is a case not only where "the Campbells are coming," 
but also where they have already come, not this time, 
however, in their ancestral homes in the Highlands of 
Scotland or in the hills of Ulster, but in the land of 
promise, the southern highlands of America. 
/ In the "Winning of the West" Mr. Roosevelt pays 
the following tribute to the Scotch-Irish pioneers: 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 17 

"The backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and 
parentage, and of mixed race; but the dominant strain 

in their blood was that of the Pres- 
Mbute^^*'^ byterian Irish— the Scotch-Irish 

as they were often called. Full 
credit has been awarded the Roundhead and the Cava- 
lier for their leadership in our history; nor have we 
been altogether blind to the deeds of the Hollander 
and the Huguenot ; but it is doubtful if we have wholly 
realized the importance of the part played by that 
stern and virile people, the Irish whose preachers 
taught the creed of Knox and Calvin. These Irish 
representatives of the Covenanters were in the West 
almost what the Puritans were in the Northeast, and 
more than the Cavaliers were in the South. Mingled 
with the descendants of many other races, they 
formed the kernel of the distinctively and intensely 
American stock who were the pioneers of our people 
in their march westward." / 

Our mountain people may, then, boast a most virile 
lineage. In many cases the individual genealogical 

records have been lost, 

A Virile 

Lineao-p "Nor can the skillful herald trace 

The founders of our ancient race." 

One generation of pioneers unable to read or write 
would be sufficient to break the magic thread that ties 
the generations together. The writer once saw a new 
student upon matriculating write down a phonetic 
caricature of a well-known name, and had the privi- 
lege of setting the young man right for the rest of his 



i8 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

life in the correct spelling of his family name that had 
been lost through illiterate parents. But nobody could 
efface the record of racial lineage registered in name 
and frame, in feature and speech, in mental and re- 
ligious characteristics. 

Rudyard Kipling tells a story of a puzzlingly pecu- 
liar family discovered in the Himalayas. It was evi- 
dently a family with a foreign 
Race Registry ^^^^.^ j^ j^ Investigation revealed 

certain infallible signs worked into the Hindoo family : 
red hair, irascibility, the worship of the crucifix, and 
the singing of a song that proved to be "The Wearing 
of the Green," and those Hibernian signs were all ex- 
plained and justified when it was found that a soldier 
of a forgotten Irish regiment had married a native 
woman and reared a family in that lonely recess of 
the mountains. Everything about the family pro- 
claimed its Irish ancestry. Were all the southern 
highlanders to conspire to deny their ancestry, thou- 
sands of voices would yet cry out of their physical, 
intellectual, and religious characteristics : "Do not 
deny the races that gave you birth and heredity ; your 
speech and everything about you betray you; most 
of you are Scotch-Irishmen; many of you, especially 
in Kentucky, are Englishmen ; some of you are Hugue- 
nots and Germans; all of you are descendants of the 
original stocks with which God peopled the New 
World. Hold high your heads, for what more could 
God do for men than he had done for you ! He pre- 
pared for you : he gave you great-grandfathers of the 
best races he had in stock." 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 19 

A century and a half have passed away and the 

men of the mountains of to-day are the descendants 

of some of those sterUng pioneers. 

Three Classes of j^ ^^^^ l^^l^ lonely state for 

Mountaineers , ^. • ^u • a 

several generations in their Appa- 
lachian homes ; but they are still there to give account 
of themselves, and to face the providential future. 
'^There have developed among these dwellers in the 
mountains three distinct classes, that must be recog- 
nized by every judicious student of their history: (i) 
nominal mountaineers; (2) normal and typical moun- 
taineers; (3) submerged mountaineers. 

I. Merely Nominal Mountaineers. — These are the 

large populations that have occupied the fertile and 

extensive valleys of the Shenan- 

Class One Is ^^^1^ ^^^ g^g^ Tennessee, and 

^ ^ other rich valleys and plateaus, 

and have established centers of trade and commerce 
that have developed such prosperous cities and towns 
as Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Johnson 
City, Bristol, Asheville, Roanoke, and Staunton. 
These mountaineers, or rather valley-dwellers, have 
to deal only with such questions as affect other in- 
telligent sections of our land. They send out mis- 
sionaries to the ends of the earth, and have as rich 
and pure a life as have any urban or country people 
of our Southland. They are a positive force in our 
national life, and are a valuable asset in the inventory 
that Uncle Sam may make of his riches. They out- 
number the other two classes combined. To apply to 



20 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

them any hasty generalizations suggested by a study 
of the third class is simply unpardonable. 

2. Normal and Typical Mountaineers. — Away 
from these centers of wealth, competence, cul- 
ture, and refinement, there are two other classes 
more affected by their mountain 
^^_^,^,^^Y° environment than are these others 

that merely live in sight of the 
mountains or in highland communities that are "low- 
land" in their development. There are, first, the true, 
worthy, normal, typical mountaineers that deserve far 
more of praise than of dispraise. While their isolated 
and hard life, remote from the centers of culture, has 
contracted their wants and the supply of those wants, 
and has forced them to do without a multitude of 
the ''necessities" and conveniences and luxuries that 
seem indispensable to many other people of the twen- 
tieth century, they have largely kept that which is 
really worth while, namely, their virility and force of 
character. Hemmed in by remorseless environment, 
they have nevertheless preserved the former rugged 
character and sterling qualities of their race. 

The fact is that Nature, in accordance with her 
marvelous method of compensations, has endowed 
these hardy mountaineers with some sterner qualities 
in lieu of the more Chesterfieldian ones of more fa- 
vored society; qualities that render them in some re- 
spects stronger and more resourceful than their more 
pampered kinsmen of the valley or the plain. They 
have escaped many of the vices and follies that are 
sapping the life of modern society. They have nerves, 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 21 

in this day of neurasthenia and neuremia. They know- 
something of all the necessary arts, in these days when 
centralized and specialized labor gives each workman 
only a part of one art to which to apply himself. 

The mountaineer of this class eats what he raises, 
and applies to the store for little more than coffee 
and sugar to supplement what his acres produce. He 
often does his own horseshoeing, carpentering, shoe- 
making, and sometimes he weaves homespun. He is 
the most hospitable host on earth, and he heartily en- 
joys his guest provided that guest has the courtesy 
to show his appreciation of what is offered him. His 
honesty coexists with a native shrewdness that is 
sometimes a revelation to the unscrupulous visitor 
that would take advantage of him in a trade. He is 
usually amply able to take care of himself. Indeed 
no American has a livelier native intelligence. 

To speak of this class of mountaineers as meriting 
patronizing disdain is to show oneself to be a most 
superficial observer. Many of these men of the 
mountains do need much that can be given from 
without the Appalachians, but they have a reserve 
strength that, when aroused, will speedily prove them 
the peers of any people. 

3. Submerged Mountaineers. — There is a third and 
much smaller class of mountaineers of which not so 
much good can be said. They cor- 
Ne^^ds^elp^ respond to, while they are entirely 

different from, that peculiar and 
pitiable lowland class of humanity that was one of the 
indirect products of the institution of slavery — "the 



22 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

poor whites" or ''white trash," as they used to be 
called. They are the comparatively few, who are very 
incorrectly supposed by many readers of magazine ar- 
ticles to be typical of the entire body of southern 
mountaineers. By this mistaken supposition a mighty 
injustice is done to a very large majority of the 
dwellers in the Appalachians. As fairly judge Eng- 
land by ''Darkest England," or London by White- 
chapel, or New York by the slums, or any community 
by the submerged tenth. 

This third class consists of the drift, the flotsam 
and jetsam, that are cast up here and there among 
the mountains. They are the shiftless, ambitionless 
degenerates, such as are found wherever men are 
found. Usually they own little or no land and eke 
out a precarious existence, as only a beneficent Provi- 
dence that cares for the birds and other denizens of 
the forest could explain. 

They are those unfortunates that are found every- 
where, whether in city or country, who sink to the 
bottom, and leave upper and middle classes above 
them. They are simply the lowest class in the moun- 
tains, and they deserve at our hearts and hands both 
sympathy and aid. The writer will make no fun of 
them, will recount no startling stories at their ex- 
pense, and will not exploit their oddities or peculiari- 
ties. It was his good fortune to have parents who 
were foreign missionaries; and very early in his life 
these parents taught him to count no one common, 
unclean, or even ridiculous for whom Christ died. 
That early training coincides fully with his inclina- 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 23 

tion when his brethren of the mountains are concerned. 
A derisive smile, a sneer, a cynical remark, or an un- 
kind criticism would cause the mountaineer the keen- 
est hurt, and would cost the offender the valued 
friendship of that mountaineer, and his own brotherly 
influence over him; and why should one say behind 
a mountaineer's back what would naturally make him 
a lifelong enemy if said before his face? It is a mis- 
take to treat any mountaineer as if he were a stolid 
creature incapable of feeling; for the fact is that there 
is no one more keenly sensitive than is he. His face 
may not show it, for he has the Indian's impassive- 
ness; but, if you could see his heart, you would be 
reminded of the sensitive plant of his hills that closes 
convulsively almost before you touch it. 

The proportion of Scotch-Irish names may not be 
so great among this third class, but many such names 
are found among them. This class would be a very 
hopeless one were it not for a quality that will be re- 
ferred to again; namely, the fact that it can be made 
over in one generation. 

It need hardly be said that, as in all classifications 

of men on the basis of character and condition, there 

are many gradations among these 

Modifications of ^^ree classes ; and, indeed, that the 

iJicse viass6s 111 

classes themselves merge mto one 

another, so that at times it is impossible to say just 
where one ends and another begins. But why be too 
nice in determining metes and bounds? Is there not 
even in the great metropolis a slum problem, and is 
there not a Fifth Avenue problem — both with inde- 



24 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

terminate boundaries? The worthiest question any- 
one can ask himself is : How can I best help any 
brother man of mine, of any rank and race, sub- 
merged or non-submerged, to realize his high calling 
in Christ Jesus? 

The southern Appalachians have, then, these three 
classes, very widely distinct, with many modifications 

and shadings of the classes, and. 
Many Men of q£ course, with many special idio- 

Many Kinds . .1 • j. .. i 

syncrasies among the mdividuals 

that make up the classes. No one is at all prepared 
to understand the mountaineers who has been led by 
imaginative and long-range magazineers to confound 
the people of the region into one vast mediocrity or 
even degeneracy in which all individuals and all 
classes look alike to him. 

A nomenclature that is objectionable to the persons 
named should, in courtesy, be modified to remove all 
unnecessary offense. Some writers 
"Mountaineers,'' h^^g gotten into the habit of call- 
not "Mountain • ^ a 1 u ^ 
Whites'' mg us modern Appalaches moun- 
tain whites," a term that implies 
peculiarity and, inferentially, inferiority. We are not 
deeply in love with that nomenclature. It sounds too 
much like "poor white trash," the most opprobrious 
term known in the South. We do not like this color 
label process any more than country school boys en- 
joy being called "greenies" by their city cousins. 
There are no mountain blacks, or browns, or yellows. 
Fancy how it would sound to hear the inhabitants of 
the Buckeye State spoken of as "Ohio whites" ! They 



THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 25 

call themselves Ohioans, and we call ourselves "south- 
ern mountaineers" or "highlanders," and of that name 
we are humbly proud. There is no evil hint in the 
word mountaineer in the Appalachians, but rather the 
reverse — an honorable ring. Better use no class name 
at all, if possible; but if one must be used, let it be 
a generous one. 

A letter was not long since received at a mountain 
post-office addressed, "To the Teacher of the Moun- 
tain White School." Put yourself in the place of the 
proud-spirited people of that village, and you can the 
better appreciate the fact that the thoughtlessly ad- 
dressed letter was of no help whatever to the teacher. 

The ancestors of the mountaineers left Europe in 
search of a land where a man might be "a man for a' 
that," and the descendants of those ancestors are jeal- 
ous of their American peerage. They are courteous 
only to the courteous. They can endure no 'T-am- 
greater-than-thou" air. Surely they have a right to 
expect of their friends the courtesy of an acceptable 
designation and the avoidance of what is to them an 
objectionable epithet; they are mountaineers or high- 
landers, and never "mountain whites." 



CHAPTER III 
The Service of the Mountaineers 

If we take the term "southern mountaineers" in its 
broadest extent, all must agree that the service ren- 
dered the nation by the mountaineers of the South 
has been a notable one. 

They conquered the Alps beyond which untold mil- 
lions of later compatriots were to find their fruitful 
Italy. It was, indeed, no small service that Boone 
and Robertson, Bean and Sevier, and the Shelbys lent 
the struggling colonies and later the infant republic, 
by pressing backward the long-time frontiers until 
those frontiers practically vanished in the sunset West. 

As backwoodsmen, clad in buckskin, and bearing 
their trusty rifles, the pioneers took their lives in their 
hands and scaled the mighty bar- 
Fr ^nti^*^°^'^ riers that Nature had piled before 

them, and braved wild beast and 
wilder Indian, and defied the dread of unknown evils 
in an unknown wilderness. What we pass in review 
in a day cost them the efforts of the best part of a 
lifetime. Their days were spent in arduous toil, and 
their nights were too often wasted in anxious vigils. 
The annals of the frontiersmen are full of the stories 
of daring exploits and uncomplaining endurance. 

26 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 27 

Such service was the cost that civilization pays for 
new conquests, but it was paid not by the salaried 
emissaries of an organized government, nor by the 
subsidized forces of great trading companies, but by 
individuals that went always at their own charges, and 
sometimes at the cost of all things ; more often than 
not, hindered rather than encouraged by the unappre- 
ciative governments they had left behind them when 
they plunged into the depths of the forest. 

They took with them the Bible and Protestant 
Christianity, and established their hereditary faith in 
every district of the mountains. 
Established There is no infidelity native to the 

Christianity Appalachians. An infidel is an im- 

ported monstrosity. The only heresy is that of con- 
duct. Men believe in the Bible as the only infallible 
rule of faith and practice. "Thus saith the Lord," 
when once ascertained, is the end of all their fre- 
quent theological controversies. 

The legends of Londonderry may have faded from 
the memory, but the Orangemen of Ulster are hardly 
more inveterate foes of Romanism 
Established ^^^^ ^j.^ the southern moun- 

Protestantism ^aineers. A traveler in the Blue 

Ridge stopped at a cabin for a gourdful of water. As 
the mistress of the cabin, "on hospitable thoughts in- 
tent," was bringing the water, a little child clung to 
her skirts and hindered her. In her annoyance she 
reproved the child, and in a warning voice said, "You 
must be good or Clavers will get you." Thus has 
the once-dreaded name of Claverhouse survived as a 



28 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

bogie among those that are unfamiliar with the pages 
of history. In somewhat the same way has a deep- 
seated hatred of Roman Catholicism been inherited 
from the past. Strange to say, Rome has as yet made 
practically no effort to win the mountain people; she 
either overlooks them or deems them an unpromising 
field of proselytism. 

Fiske, in his ''Old Virginia and Her Neighbors," 
tells of a great service rendered by the Scotch-Irish 
of the Appalachians. He says : 
Democi?^^ 'Tn a certain sense the Shenan- 

doah Valley and adjacent Appa- 
lachian region may be called the cradle of modern 
democracy. In that rude frontier society life assumed 
many new aspects, old customs were forgotten, old 
distinctions abolished, social equality acquired even 
more importance than unchecked individualism. . . . 
This phase of democracy, which is destined to con- 
tinue so long as frontier life retains any importance, 
can nowhere be so well studied in its beginnings as 
among the Presbyterian population of the Appalachian 
region in the eighteenth century." 

Out of the chaos of individualism, the frontiers- 
men soon evolved all the necessary elements of civil 
government. In many places they 

Established founded law and order as substan- 

Civil Government . ,, ,, . , . , 

tially as they exist anywhere m the 

states. In some sections they introduced a good ob- 
servance of the Sabbath — a better one than is now 
to be found in most of the cities of our land. There 
are worthy citizens in the remotest coves that do 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 29 

not hunt on the Sabbath, even at the present day; 
and the writer recalls one instance where the people 
of a very mountainous region discussed the advisa- 
bility of using mob law to rid their neighborhood of 
an intruder from another country, who, despite their 
protests, persisted in hunting on the Sabbath day. 
Another mountaineer apologized, on his own initia- 
tive, for having been out with his team after mid- 
night of Saturday night, justifying himself on the 
good old Shorter Catechism ground that his work was 
one of "necessity and mercy." In many places, how- 
ever, the Sabbath is in as extreme peril as it is in our 
great cities. 

The fatal mistake of the pioneers, if it was not in 
many cases an unavoidable necessity, was their al- 
lowing the hardships of their lot to 

staDlisnea prevent them from giving their 

Education , ., , . , • 

children as good an education as 

they themselves had enjoyed. As Mr. Roosevelt in- 
vestigated the early documents that deal with the set- 
tlement of the Allegheny frontier, he noted the ab- 
sence of signatures made by mere signs or marks. 
In 1776 out of one hundred and ten pioneers of the 
Washington District who signed a petition to be an- 
nexed to North Carolina, only two signed by mark. 
In 1780 two hundred and fifty-six pioneers of Cum- 
berland signed the "Articles of Agreement," and only 
one signed by mark. 

But the mistake referred to was by no means a 
universal one. In the case of the people of the rich 



30 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

valleys and plateaus, the first care of the pioneers 
was to establish their log church; their next was to 
plant by it an academy. Many such schools perished 
either in the course of the years or during our Civil 
War; yet there remain as the lineal descendants of 
such schools, supported and perpetuated at the cost 
of unbounded sacrifice on the part of able Presby- 
terian ministers, at least six of the so-called "small 
colleges" to which the people of our generation are 
so generously paying eloquent tribute. 

The service that the southern mountaineers have 
rendered in national matters can hardly be overesti- 
mated. They were possessed by a 

v!^^^i5^,. fierce love of liberty, and so the 

the Nation , • i i r a • im 

birthplace of American liberty 

very appropriately was in the mountains. In Abing- 
don, Virginia, at the junction of the valleys of the 
Blue Ridge and East Tennessee, as early as January 
20, 1775, a council met that, as Bancroft says, "was 
mostly composed of Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish 
descent." "The spirit of freedom swept through their 
minds as naturally as the wind sighs through the fir 
trees of the Black Mountains. There they resolved 
never to surrender, but to live and die for liberty." 

This was four months before the Scotch and 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the lowland hills of 
North Carolina issued the "immortal Mecklenburg 
Declaration," which in its turn antedated by more 
than a year the Declaration of Independence by the 
Continental Congress. 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 31 

While the very fewness and the inaccessibility of 
the mountaineers were their best defense from the 

armies of the redcoats, on the 
Share m the ^^j^^j. ^^^^ ^^^^^ insignificant 

Revolution , \ ^ . 

numbers and remoteness from 

their only friends exposed the frontiersmen to the 
deadly assaults of the Indians, the alHes of Britain. 
The mountaineers have been called by Gilmore in the 
title of one of his books, ''The Advance Guard of 
Civilization" ; and with equal appropriateness, in the 
title of another of his books, ''The Rearguard of the 
Revolution." 

Twice during the Revolution, "the grand strategy" 
of the English planned simultaneous assaults upon the 
colonies from the coast-line and the Indian frontier; 
and twice did the little band of Watauga settlers 
frustrate the successful carrying out of those saga- 
cious and most sinister plans of campaign. In 1776, 
while four hundred and thirty-five men behind pal- 
metto logs in Charleston beat off the British fleet 
with its five thousand sailors and seamen, Sevier and 
Shelby and their two hundred and ten backwoods- 
men repulsed and defeated the Cherokees led by 
Oconostota and Dragging Canoe. Then from Georgia 
northward to Virginia, the frontiersmen swept in 
retributive wrath upon the Tory-led Indians, and dealt 
them such a blow as extorted from them an unwilling 
but at least a temporary peace. At the same time the 
Tories that infested the frontier were either driven 
out or forced to take the oath of allegiance to the 
Confederation. 



32 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

In 1779 when, on the coast, Savannah had been 
taken by Clinton's expedition, the frontier invasion 
was forestalled by the timely capture of all the ammu- 
nition stored for the coming campaign by the British 
and their allies at what is now Chattanooga, by seven 
hundred and fifty mountaineers led again by Shelby 
and Sevier. Thus were the southern colonies pro- 
tected, without help from the Colonial army, by 
the woodsmen who while fighting for their own 
existence also contributed materially to the saving 
of the infant nation. 

Nor was this all the service that the frontiersmen 
rendered during the Revolution. The darkest hour of 

. . the War of Independence in the 

Kings Mountain ^ .u • ^o u ^i. 1 

^ South was in 1780, when Charles- 

ton was captured by the English, Gates and DeKalb 
were defeated at Camden, and the interior was over- 
run by the victorious British soldiery. Washington 
said: *T have almost ceased to hope." 

Especially troublesome was the presence of Colonel 
Ferguson, who established himself with two hundred 
regulars in the western border counties, attempting 
to draw to the royal banner the rougher element that 
inhabited the foothills and were neither planters nor 
mountaineers. Two thousand Tories had joined the 
standard, and Ferguson was threatening the frontier 
settlements. 

In August he sent word to Shelby threatening to 
''march his army over the mountains, to hang the 
patriot leaders, and to lay the country waste with fire 
and sword." The Indians had rallied from their con- 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 33 

fusion of the previous year, and were menacing the 
settlements; but not for a moment did the "rear- 
guard" hesitate when they saw their duty and their 
opportunity. When all other opposition in the South 
was practically dormant, Shelby and Sevier formed 
the instant purpose not to act on the defensive by 
guarding the mountain passes against the foe, but the 
rather bravely to issue from their natural defenses and 
to assault and capture Colonel Ferguson and his force. 

The story of the Battle of Kings Mountain is too 
long to tell here, but no more heroic or romantic chap- 
ter is found in our nation's history. The mountain 
clans mustered on the Watauga and a draft was taken, 
not to decide who should go to fight Ferguson, but 
who should stay to defend the settlements. By Sep- 
tember twenty-fifth, eight hundred and forty moun- 
tain men were ready for the fight, including four 
hundred ''Backwater Presbyterians" under Colonel 
Campbell. Of the six leaders, five were Presbyterian 
elders. Dr. Doak, the founder of Washington Col- 
lege, committed the expedition in prayer to the God of 
battles, and addressed the volunteer soldiery, closing 
his address with the words : 

"Go forth, my brave men, go forth with the sword 
of the Lord and of Gideon." 

A few days later, at Kings Mountain, after a march 
of great hardships and sufferings, nine hundred and 
sixty militiamen surrounded and took by storm an 
entrenched natural fortress, and captured over eleven 
hundred English soldiers. 

'That glorious victory," said Jeflferson, "was the 



34 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

glorious annunciation of that turn in the tide of suc- 
cess which terminated the Revolutionary War with 
the seal of independence." 

The mountaineers had, without orders, without pay, 
without commission, without equipment, and without 
hope of monetary reward, struck a decisive blow for 
the entire country. And then, upon their arrival at 
their cabin homes, without a day's rest they had to 
hurry into the Indians' territory to check the warlike 
expeditions that were about to descend upon the set- 
tlements. 

Thus were the trusty rifles of the pioneers used 
within one short month against the British regulars 
at Kings Mountain, and against their savage allies at 
Boyd's Creek, three hundred miles distant. 

The southern mountains are full of the descendants 

of Revolutionary soldiers. Besides the little armies 

of volunteer soldiery who fought 

Sons, Daughters of ^^^ Indians and Tories on the 

frontier, and besides those who is- 
sued out of their mountain settlements to render spe- 
cial service at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, there 
were also large numbers of volunteers from the eastern 
slopes and valleys of the Blue Ridge region who 
served in the patriot armies. Then, too, at the close 
of the war, there were large numbers of Revolution- 
ary soldiers from other sections, who, when dis- 
banded, moved into the Appalachians and took up 
grants of land that were made them by the Govern- 
ment. From this prolific race there have issued hosts 
of descendants who are eligible to be enrolled as Sons 




A Grandmother Who Wanted a School for 
Her People. 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 35 

or Daughters of the American Revolution. Some of 
them proudly show their friends the very rifles that 
their forefathers carried during their service in the 
patriot armies. 

The mountaineers again guarded the frontier for 
the Government during the second war with Britain. 

Many volunteers served in the 
War of -12 and northern armies, but most of them 
Mexican War , 1 r- 1 t 1 

served under General Jackson m 

the "Creek War" and at New Orleans. The intensity 
of the patriotism may be judged by a philippic against 
laggards preached in 18 13 by Dr. Isaac Anderson in 
his Maryville pulpit. His text was, "Curse ye Meroz, 
saith the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the in- 
habitants thereof; because they came not to the help 
of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the 
mighty." 

"British rum and Albion gold have roused the 
Creeks' lust for rapine and blood. We are exposed 
to their incursions; let us carry the war into their 
country, and go in such numbers as to overwhelm 
them at once. Apathy on this subject would be crim- 
inal. The call of country is the call of God." 

A few weeks later one of the patriot doctor's 
patriot schoolboys, young Ensign Sam Houston, was 
the second to mount the breastworks of the Indian 
stronghold on the Tallapoosa. Three severe wounds 
he received that day, but he lived to be a figure of na- 
tional importance. The men of the mountains crushed 
the Creeks in a campaign of many battles ; and then 



36 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

at New Orleans struck the British the heaviest blow 
that they received during the war. 

In 1 817 the only volunteers General Jackson took 
with him to the Seminole War were eleven hundred 
Tennesseeans. In the war with Mexico, so eager 
were the mountaineers that, at the first call in Ten- 
nessee for three thousand men, thirty thousand volun- 
teered their services. The state became known as 
''the Volunteer State," but the entire Appalachian sec- 
tion also merited the name. 

Naturally in the days of the Civil War, there were 
divisions and alienations and feuds in the Appalach- 
ians. Many on the Virginian side 
The Civil War ^^ ^^^ mountains and among the 

North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama mountains 
espoused the cause of the Confederacy, and made as 
good soldiers as the valorous hosts of the South could 
boast. "Stonewall" Jackson was a mountaineer in- 
dubitably of the first class, and his famous "Stone- 
wall" brigade was made up largely of the men of the 
hills. The West Virginia, Kentucky, and East Ten- 
nessee mountains were overwhelmingly for the Union ; 
while, also, there were many men of the other sec- 
tions referred to that fought for the preservation of 
that Union. No better soldiers were found on either 
side of the great debate at arms than were those that 
enlisted from the mountains. 

While it may be an exaggeration to say that the 
loyalty of the Appalachians decided the great contest, 
that loyalty certainly contributed substantially to the 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 37 

decision ; for the mountains cleft the Confederacy with 
a mighty hostile element that not merely subtracted 
great armies from the enrollment of the Confederacy, 
but even necessitated the presence of other armies for 
the control of so large a disaffected territory. The 
Federal forces actually recruited from the states of 
the southern Appalachians were as considerable in 
number as were the armies of the American Revolu- 
tion gathered from all the thirteen colonies, and con- 
siderably exceeded the total of both mighty armies 
that fought at Gettysburg, while those from East 
Tennessee alone numbered over thirty thousand men. 

These soldiers were not conscripted or attracted by 
bounty^, but rather in most cases ran the gauntlet 
through hostile forces for one, two, or three hundred 
miles to reach a place where they could enlist under 
the flag of their country. The congressional district 
in East Tennessee in which the writer lives claims 
the distinction of having sent a larger percentage of 
its population into the Union army than did any other 
congressional district in the entire country. One 
county of that district furnished more Federal sol- 
diers than it had voters. 

The story of the loyal mountaineers is as romantic 
and thrilling a one as was ever told by minstrel or by 
chronicler of the stirring days of chivalry. No doubt 
their position was one of the divinely ordained in- 
fluences that contributed to that outcome of the frat- 
ricidal strife which all Americans now recognize to 
have been providential and, therefore, best. 



38 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The happy union of later days was most auspi- 
ciously manifested in the service rendered side by side 

by the sons and grandsons of the 
Spani^-Amer- veterans of both armies of the six- 
ican War • ^^ a • 

ties, as these younger Americans 

united to free Cuba from Spanish tyranny. Of the 
men enlisted during the Spanish-American War, a 
little army gathered from the states of the southern 
mountains — a number far in excess of the quota to 
be expected from those states. Indeed the recruiting 
stations had repeatedly to suspend operations in this 
section, so numerous were the enlistments. The offi- 
cers testified heartily to the superior quality of the 
young mountaineers as soldiers and campaigners. 
Said one of the officers : *'The soldiers from the 
mountains of the South were the best soldiers we had 
in the war." The boys fought uncomplainingly amid 
whatever privations. They were of the stock that 
produced Sam Houston. At San Jacinto his captive, 
Santa Anna, asked Houston how so few could win 
so complete a victory. The victor drew an ear of 
corn from his pocket, and said : "When patriots fight 
on such rations as these they are unconquerable." 

Another form of service rendered by the people of 
the mountain region has been that contributed to the 

upbuilding of the newer parts of 
Service of ^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^1^^ emigrants who 

Emisrrants , . , 

have gone out into those sections 

from the Appalachian country. In spite of the com- 
paratively few who have migrated from the remoter 
mountains, the Appalachians as a whole have been a 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 39 

veritable cornucopia pouring out great numbers of 
young people, first into the Northwest, then into the 
Southwest, and finally into all the great West. 
Everywhere these emigrants have been rapidly as- 
similated, and they have made invaluable contribu- 
tions to the sections of their adoption. What Dr. 
H. W. Wiley says of their influence in Indiana is also 
true, in varying degrees, of their influence in other 
states of the Union. While addressing the Indiana 
Society of Chicago, he said : "The truest Hoosier 
was the emigrant from southwestern Virginia, from 
western North Carolina, from eastern Tennessee, and 
eastern Kentucky. This last wave in its approach 
stopped for a while in Kentucky, then passed on and 
overwhelmed and engillfed the 'lumbar' region of In- 
diana. Typical of this stream was Thomas Lincoln 
and Nancy Hanks, with their son Abraham, who came 
with the rest of the flood and bided for a time, only 
to move farther west and north. These were the 
true Hoosiers, free from all the virtues of education, 
many of them knowing not even how to read and 
write, but lithe of limb, strong of body, keen of sight, 
honest of heart, and endowed with a power of ob- 
servation and penetration which was little short of 
marvelous. They brought the Hoosier dialect so- 
called into the state, and with keen and incisive words 
and biting sarcasm and wit, in their homely way ob- 
served and treated all the subjects which came up 
for their consideration. It was one of these who in 
the fertile imagination of Edward Eggleston formu- 
lated the fundamental principle of Wall Street finance 



40 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

as it exists to-day, in the terse but comprehensive ex- 
pression, Them thet hez gits/ Not only did they 
thus see into the intricacies of finance, but with equal 
insight and vision understood political and social 
problems in which they lived. These were the fathers 
and mothers, the grandfathers and grandmothers^, of 
that great army of statesmen, philosophers, poets, and 
authors who had their being or received their in- 
spiration in southern Indiana, chief among them the 
great preserver of his country and the idol of the 
whole nation, Abraham Lincoln, who lived his boy- 
hood years in that environment and received from it 
that inspiration and character which with his native 
genius made his career possible. Contemporaneous 
with or coming soon before or after him were an 
army of great men and great women to whom the 
fame and prosperity of Indiana are due." 

This chapter would be incomplete were it not to 

call attention, before closing, to the service rendered 

their country by individuals of this 

service oi mountain reo^ion. A mere mention 

Individuals r r • -n 

of a few representative names will 

emphasize the great part that, in spite of all their se- 
clusion, the Appalachians have had in the affairs of 
the nation. There are the pioneers Boone, Sevier, 
the Shelbys, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; the 
presidents Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and An- 
drew Johnson; the famous Confederates Zebulon B. 
Vance, John H. Reagan, and "Stonewall" Jackson; 
the renowned Unionists Parson Brownlow and Ad- 



SERVICE OF THE MOUNTAINEERS 41 

miral Farragut; the inventor Cyrus H. McCormick ; 
and the man of the nation, Abraham Lincoln. 

Surely the annals of the country would be the 
poorer were the deeds of the men of the Appa- 
lachians not found recorded in them. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Appalachian Problem 

The problems that America confronts and must 
solve are legion in number. There are problems na- 
tional and problems sectional; but 
P^^hl ^ ^^ ^^^ national problems belong also 

to the sections, and the sectional 
ones belong also to the nation. Away down South 
in Dixie land, there are two great problems — one, 
black; the other, white. 

The black problem is of vastly the greater impor- 
tance because it affects the peace, prosperity, and 
civilization of the entire South, if 
The Black ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ nation. It is a 

Problem , , i . , , . 

problem to the right solution of 

which the best efforts of patriots must, perhaps for a 
long time to come, be most faithfully dedicated. It 
demands the best human wisdom, and, above all, that 
wisdom which cometh from above, profitable to di- 
rect. 

While we lend our most loyal endeavor to the right 
solution of this supreme problem — a solution that 
shall please our common Lord and Master — we should 
imitate the methods of the divine Mathematician, and 

42 



THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM 43 

not confine ourselves to one problem alone, but rather 
seek also the solution of other contemporary, coin- 
cident, and pressing problems. 

The second problem is a white one ; it is the Appa- 
lachian one. It is presented principally by the third 
class of the mountaineers of the 
P^\l^^^* South. Among the total five mil- 

lions inhabiting the Appalachians 
there are a considerable number (how many, though 
some say two hundred and fifty thousand and others 
five hundred thousand, there is no statistician wise 
enough to give exact data) that are sorely in need of 
our Christian sympathy and help. 

To use one metaphor, they are our belated brethren ; 
they are behind the times; "they have fallen behind 
in the race of life and progress" ; they have thus far 
missed the twentieth-century train. As they have 
aptly been called, they are our "contemporary ances- 
tors." To use another metaphor, they form a sub- 
merged class — not submerged by the waves of an- 
vancing civilization, for these waves have rolled up 
against the rocky bulwarks and fallen back in spray 
upon the lowlands ; but submerged in sylvan solitudes 
and seclusion, and sometimes buried in backwoods- 
man idleness and illiteracy. 

The problem is simply this : How are we to bring 

these belated and submerged blood brothers of ours, 

our own kith and kin, out into the 

The Problem and completer enjoyment of twentieth- 
Its Peculiarities / . ... . , ^, . . 

century civilization and Christian- 
ity ? Let us seek the solution. 



44 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The Appalachian problem has certain peculiarities 
that cannot fail to engage our attention. 

Whatever else may be said of our problem, it must 
be agreed that it is a peculiarly American one. In 
many of the heights of the Ap- 
Problem palachians, a foreigner is almost 

as rare an object as an American 
would be in the wilds of Tibet. An Indian in his war 
paint in a crowded city street hardly excites more gen- 
uine interest and curiosity than does a non-English- 
speaking visitor in the recesses of the Great Smokies. 
The total population of foreign birth in the southern 
mountains, including the 57,072 miners and their fam- 
ilies of West Virginia, is only 89,964. If we omit 
West Virginia, the percentage of foreign-born popu- 
lation in the mountains is far less than one per cent. 
There is at least one spot undisturbed by foreign im- 
migration. Only in some mining communities are 
there many foreigners. West Virginia has fourteen 
mountain counties that have from six to fifty-one per- 
sons of foreign birth to each county. Kentucky has 
one county with no foreigner, and twenty counties with 
only from one to eighteen of foreign birth. Virginia 
has twelve counties with from none to twelve of for- 
eign birth. Tennessee has twenty counties with from 
none to twenty of foreign birth. North Carolina has 
five counties containing together a grand total of 
eight foreigners — not the equivalent of just one ordi- 
nary mountain family. Sixteen North Carolina coun- 
ties have from one to eighteen persons of foreign 
birth. South Carolina has a county with a lonely 



THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM 45 

total of thirteen foreigners. Georgia has sixteen 
counties with from none to nineteen of foreign birth. 
And Alabama closes the procession with four coun- 
ties that have an aggregate foreign population of 
forty-two. 

The problem is also a purely Protestant one. There 
is no other locality in the English-speaking world 

where a parallel in this regard can 
A Protestant ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ conditions in the 

Problem a 1 1 • r • r 

Appalachians ; for, except m a few 

towns in the valleys, not a Roman Catholic can be 
found. 

The testimony of the Religious Census, published 
by the United States Census Bureau in 1906, is re- 
markable indeed. According to this census, there are 
only 86,607 Roman Catholics in the southern Ap- 
palachians, and these live in Maryland and in the 
mining regions, and in the larger cities. For exam- 
ple, 20,373 live in the four mountain counties of 
Maryland, and 13,467 in Birmingham. Out of the 
251 mountain counties, 161 do not have even one 
Roman Catholic within their borders. In Virginia 
twenty-three of the forty- two mountain counties have 
no Roman Catholics either within their own limits or 
within the ''independent cities" that are surrounded 
by those counties. In West Virginia, in spite of the 
mining population, fifteen of the fifty-five counties 
have no Romanists; in Kentucky, twenty-eight of the 
thirty-six have none; in Tennessee forty-one of the 
forty-five; in Georgia, twenty-one of the twenty-five; 
in Alabama, ten of the seventeen; in South Carolina, 



46 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

one of the four ; while in North Carolina only one of 
the twenty-three counties contains a Roman Catholic, 
and that is Buncombe County in which Asheville is 
located. 

In a recent Roman Catholic appeal in behalf of the 
''Missions of St. Francis de Sales (East Tennessee)" 
the following remarkable statement appears: "This 
mission field comprises some thirty-four counties of 
East Tennessee, embracing an area of over twelve 
thousand square miles, with nearly a hundred thou- 
sand families within that area. The total population 
is over five hundred thousand souls. The Catholics 
on these missions (exclusive of the city of Knoxville) 
number less than three hundred." The appeal ex- 
presses the hope that from a chosen center "mission- 
ary activity and church extension may radiate until 
this fair field gleams with the 'white robe' of mission 
churches and rejoices in thousands of loyal neo- 
phytes." 

The Protestant prejudice is intense. When the 
writer was only a lad, he once found himself in very 
bad repute among some mountaineers because he was 
mistaken for a Roman Catholic. He rose to his feet 
to lead the opening prayer in a mountain Sabbath 
school. In that locality it was for some reason the 
universal custom to kneel in prayer, and some one 
explained the innovation of the visitor by saying that 
it was rumored that Roman Catholics stand in prayer. 
The stranger was not reinstated in public confidence 
until he told the people that Presbyterians, too, stand, 



THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM 47 

as did Ezra and the congregation of Israel, in the 
offering of prayer. 

Mission teachers have sometimes occasioned serious 
trouble for themselves by teaching their pupils the 
Apostles' Creed with its fatally misunderstood sen- 
tence, "I believe in the holy catholic church." No 
amount of footnotes or oral explanation could ren- 
der the sentence innocuous, or restore confidence in the 
supposed heretic who had attempted to teach it to the 
children. The mountaineers are unanimously and un- 
equivocally Protestant; and, as has already been 
stated, Rome has, for some reason, put forth practi- 
cally no effort to proselyte these dwellers in the hill 
country. 

The Appalachian problem is almost solely a white 

one. In i860, there were but few slaves in all the 

« -rr^ .^ « ,1 Appalachians, and almost all of 
A White Problem ^, .' , ., t. 

these were m the valleys. Even 

in 1910 there were but comparatively few colored 
people in the Appalachians. True, there are 618,- 
024 colored people reported as living in the south- 
ern mountain region, or about one eighth of the 
entire population, but they do not live in the remoter 
mountains. Half of this number live in Virginia and 
Alabama. There are some people in the recesses of 
the southern mountains that have never seen a colored 
man. In 'The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," 
the hero Chad saw a negro for the first time in his 
life. He was amazed, and asked what was the mat- 
ter with the man's face. When informed, he braced 
up and said : "It don't skeer me." 



48 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

Twelve mountain counties of West Virginia have 
within their borders from five to forty-eight colored 
people. Kentucky has two counties that report only 
one and four colored respectively. Virginia has one 
county with only four colored inhabitants and an- 
other with only seven. North Carolina has one county 
with no colored people. Tennessee has six counties 
with from eleven to ninety-eight. Even Georgia has 
six counties with only from fifteen to one hundred 
and sixty-two colored people. 

The only part of the South that is not directly 
concerned in the race problem is the purely mountain 
region. The two problems of the South — the col- 
ored and the white one — in their territorial applica- 
tion almost exclude each other. 

The Appalachian problem is, of course, a country 
problem. Perpetuating, as the geographical adjective 
does, the name of a tribe of In- 
A Country dians, the Appalaches, it suggests 

an outdoor problem, one near to 
Nature's heart. Save in an exceptional case like 
Asheville, there are no cities in the very mountains, 
though they flourish in the great valleys of the Blue 
Ridge and East Tennessee. Only twenty per cent, of 
the southern mountaineers live in towns of one thou- 
sand or more. The people are practically all farmers, 
and are unspoiled by the contaminations of city life. 
Their life is ideally bucolic. As has already been said, 
if it were not for the sheep-killing dogs, the moun- 
taineers might easily be the greatest pastoral people 
of modern times. 




s 

o 
K 

n 

o 



THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM 49 

Nevertheless, the problem is a varied and somewhat 
complex one. The endless variety of conditions 

among the various settlements is 
A Vaned ana apparent to one who has any inti- 

Complex Problem ^ . • , , t 

mate acquanitance with the people. 

The mountaineers are homogeneous as to race, but 
heterogeneous as to conditions. 

It is an utter mistake to assume that, because some 
— by no means all — of the mountain counties of Ken- 
tucky are cursed by the vendetta, that reminder of 
the clan vengeance of the Gaels, it is also true that 
the mountains of East Tennessee and western North 
Carolina are likewise afflicted by the same scourge. 
The feud is unknown in most of the Appalachians. 
So also is it a mistake to suppose the feudists them- 
selves the incarnation of all evil. The Presbyterian 
bishop who knew them best declared: "Feud lead- 
ers were usually among the best, most honest, and 
successful men of the mountains ; and when they re- 
moved to other localities, made some of the best citi- 
zens." 

To assume that, because ^'wildcat" illicit distilling 
is done in some places in the mountains, the favorite 
occupation of the mass of the mountaineers is "moon- 
shining" is absurd, and besides does great injustice 
to the valiant and victorious hosts of temperance men 
scattered all over the mountains. 

Could a spiritual and moral barometer test the con- 
dition of all the purely mountain communities, a vast 
variety of records would be given. Some neighbor- 
hoods have stood by the Sabbath, the home, morals, 



50 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

and religion, while many others have wandered far 
astray. 

Then, also, as might be expected, superficial esti- 
mates are often as apt to be too harsh as they are to 
be too favorable. For example, one of the most in- 
accessible counties of western North Carolina has 
been widely advertised as a very immoral county. 
One of our ministers, however, after a residence of 
several years in the heart of that impeached county 
while engaged in educational and religious work, de- 
clared that he never before lived in a place where 
there is so little secret vice, and that he had known of 
almost no illegitimate births in the county during his 
residence there. While the conditions there are prim- 
itive, and large families are being reared in single- 
roomed cabins, the logically inferred immorality does 
not after all prevail. Sometimes under a rough, sus- 
picious, and repellant exterior, the heart beats true. 

There are, however, many places in the Appalach- 
ians where the conditions are deplorable and call 
loudly for reformation. Some must receive help from 
outside sources or perish ; while, as we have seen, 
others will themselves lend a most effective helping 
hand in the making of the new mountains that patriot- 
ism and philanthropy unite in desiring. The problem 
is, of course, not so complex as is that which concerns 
the redemption and evangelization of the exceptional 
populations of the great West, or the hordes in the 
polyglot city of New York; but it is nevertheless 
sufficiently complex to challenge the best zeal and 
discretion of the church of Christ. 



THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM 51 

It must also be said with emphasis that our prob- 
lem is an exceedingly delicate one. The highlanders 
are Scotch-Irish in their high- 
A Delicate spiritedness and proud independ- 

Problem ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^1^ ^^Ip ^^i^^ 

must do so in a perfectly frank and kindly way, show- 
ing always genuine interest in them, but never a trace 
of patronizing condescension. As quick as a flash the 
mountaineer will recognize and resent the intrusion 
of any such spirit, and will refuse even what he sorely 
needs, if he detects in the accents or the demeanor of 
the giver any indications of an air of superiority. 

The worker among the mountaineers must "meet 
with them on the level and part on the square," and 
conquer their oftentimes unreasonable suspicion by 
genuine brotherly friendship. The less he has to say 
of the superiority of other sections or of the defi- 
ciencies of the mountains, the better for his cause. 
The fact is that comparatively few workers are at 
first able to pass muster in this regard, under the 
searching and silent scrutiny of the mountain people. 

The success of a worker in the mountains has 
sometimes been greatly and needlessly endangered by 
the writing of an injudicious let- 
Wanted, Tact ^gj. ^^^^ j^jj^g gotten into print and 
and More Tact ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^j^ ^^ ^^^ 

place where it was written, to embarrass its author 
and to injure or even to destroy his usefulness. On 
the other hand, while workers in the mountains wel- 
come heartily the visit of friends from other sections, 
their solicitude lest those visitors in addressing the 



52 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

schools or churches should offend the sensibilities of 
the people by leaving the impression that they look 
upon them as a peculiar and, inferentially, a lower 
class, has unhappily sometimes been justified. Cer- 
tain offensive expressions of well-meaning but blun- 
dering visitors are quoted to the prejudice of the 
work and, sad to say, of the workers, even for years 
after they were thoughtlessly and tactlessly uttered. 
There is more tact and discretion needed in the moun- 
tains than in the cities, for the mountaineer has sensi- 
bilities as acute as any yet discovered, and a pride 
that deeply resents the air of conscious and patroniz- 
ing superiority. 

Mr. Campbell, in his study of "The Southern High- 
land Region," earnestly protests against the use of 
the terms ''mission work," "mis- 
Not Wanted— ^-^^^ schools," and "missionaries" 
"Missionaries" . , . ,. ^, 

m speakmg of the mountaineers 

and of the work and the workers among them. These 
terms, while unobjectionable in many sections of our 
country, and while used frequently even by the dis- 
tinctively southern churches, and while confessedly 
innocent and appropriate in themselves, are neverthe- 
less extremely offensive in many sections of the South 
and of the southern mountains when used in refer- 
ence to the work carried on among people of this sec- 
tion by people of another section. The mountaineers 
are proud-spirited and independent, and, in resent- 
ing the word "missionaries," often say: "We're no 
heathen; they needn't send missionaries to us." The 
newspapers of the section frequently reflect this sen- 



THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM 53 

timent in very emphatic editorials. Most of the -work- 
ers in the southern Appalachians will agree with Mr. 
Campbell that the use of the word "missionary" does 
arouse a very troublesome prejudice which often hin- 
ders a most worthy cause. 

Whatever else may be said, the problem is surely 
an urgent one, whether we take into account local or 

national considerations. The men 
n urgent ^£ ^-^^ mountains need us; and 

Problem , , . ^, ' 

surely we need them. We must 

add their sturdy strength to the embattled forces of 
our Christian Americanism in the great war of the 
ages that is being waged in our day and in our land 
for the supremacy of sound government and for the 
spread of God's glorious gospel. 

Most of the Appalachians are with us already ; what 
added strength it would give us to have the entire 
army of the five millions on our side in this mo- 
mentous conflict ! They are ours by traditions and 
prejudices; the day will come when they will be ours 
as intelligent and efficient allies. 



CHAPTER V 
The Mountaineers' Reason for Being 

Before going further into the discussion of the 
problem, it will be an interesting task to search out 
somewhat more in detail the philosophy of the forma- 
tion of the problem. 

How did the mountaineers ever become moun- 
taineers? It might be enough to ask in reply: How 
has it come to pass that all moun- 
How They Became ^^-^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ population? Na- 
Mountaineers , , , ^ ^ , , 

ture abhors a vacuum, and wher- 
ever men can support themselves, they take possession 
and establish their homes. The mountains of earth 
all have their inhabitants. Even the bleak coasts of 
Greenland have their Esquimaux, the deserts of 
Syria have their Bedouin, and the lava lands of our 
West have had their Modocs. 

In attempting to give the reasons for the choice the 
earliest settlers of the mountains made of their wild 
home, we can but approximate the truth. In many 
cases, probably, the reasons for the choice were en- 
tirely different from those that we usually assign. 

Some pioneers, whom Izaak Walton would call 
Piscators and Venators, chose the mountains for the 

54 



MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING 55 

game that then still frequented every mountainside. 

They had such love of Nature and of the wild life, of 

hunting and of fishing, that they 

liunting ana shrank away from civilized society 

Fishiiiff Attractive . . , , . ^ : 

because it lessened the opportuni- 
ties for the pursuit of their craft. Like Cooper's 
Leatherstocking, they tried to keep a few days' march 
in advance of the vexations and annoyances of civiliza- 
tion. The survival of the savage strain that is in all 
of us is to be reckoned with. It is hard even now for 
all the allurements of business and society to win 
some men back from that blessed spot in field or by 
flood where they tent in vacation days. 

Rip Van Winkle fled to the Catskills to escape do- 
mestic turmoil, and he slept away twenty long years 
before he returned. In the early days many of the 
frontiersmen crept up into the coves and along the 
slopes of the mountains and found Sleepy Hollows, 
where now, "each in his narrow bed forever laid," 
they lie in the sleep of death ; and where now some of 
their descendants, metaphorically speaking, lie in a 
sleep almost as profound as is that which their fore- 
fathers enjoy. These sleepy survivors, however, are 
the hunters and trappers of to-day, learned in all the 
lore and craft of the woodsman. 

Some of the later pioneers — for but few of the 

earlier ones settled in the remoter mountains — chose 

the mountain land as Hobson's 

uniy Lana choice, because it was available 

Available , , , . ,,^ , „ 

and the choicer flatwoods were 

pre-empted. Poverty decided their location, as it de- 



56 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

cided in the city who shall live in the cheapest tene- 
ments and who shall vegetate in the ''Cabbage Patch" 
in which Mrs. Wiggs plants her humble home. 

Some of the ''Regulators" defeated by Governor 
Tryon at the Alamance before the Revolutionary War 
and some of the many victims of the harrying and 
dragooning of Virginia and the Carolinas during the 
Revolutionary War were forced, in ruin and despera- 
tion, to abandon their lowland homes and to press 
westward. While the more vigorous reached the bet- 
ter lands beyond the mountains, others with more 
incumbrances, or with less daring and energy, or with 
Fox's "broken axle," stopped in the mountains, and 
their descendants have never abandoned the rocky 
acres that became their modest patrimony. In some 
cases they tried to avoid close neighbors, reserving 
the land near them for their kindred. And yet those 
first settlers had no thought whatever of condemning 
their posterity by the choice they made of a home in 
the wilderness to imprisonment for life in the soli- 
tary confinement of mountain isolation. 

It has been a theory with some that the remoter 
mountaineers are the descendants of criminals and 

„ ,,^ , .. outlaws that took refue^e in the 

Few "Outlaws" . • r ^ ^ ^u 

mountani fastnesses to escape the 

punishment of their crimes. Fiske says in his "Old 
Virginia and Her Neighbors" that, in the earlier days 
— before lawbreakers were in the habit of fleeing to 
New York and other large cities to hide from the offi- 
cers of the outraged law — there were some criminals 
from among the "indentured white servants" of Vir- 



MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING 57 

ginia who took refuge in the mountains and planted 
permanent homes there. 

Gilmore insists that there was a "low-down" class 
in the mountains in the days of the Revolution. "They 
were mostly descended from the more worthless of 
the poor white settlers who, driven back from the 
seaboard, had herded among those wooded hills with 
the hordes of horse-thieves and criminals who had 
escaped from justice in the older settlements. The 
progeny of these people are even at this day a foul 
blot on American civiHzation." 

But in the Appalachians as a whole the percentage 
of such settlers must have formed almost a negligible 
quantity in the analysis that the historian may at- 
tempt. The mountains have not been, to any larger 
extent than other sections of the country, a Botany 
Bay or a Pitcairn Island. In the case of the Appa- 
lachians, the original "old man of the mountain" was 
neither a wild man nor an assassin. 
:i The natural and economic antagonism between 
slaveholders and non-slaveholders was so great that it 
was to be expected that wherever. 
Influence of ^g \^ ^^^ ^^se of the mountains, 

Slavery opportunity offered itself for the 

non-slaveholders to live at a comfortable distance 
from the cause of friction, they would seize that op- 
portunity. Slavery did not pay in the mountains, 
and so it did not exist there to any appreciable extent, f 
This common antagonism was one cause of the set- 
tling of the mountains; it was also an effect of that 



58 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

separation, taken in connection with the opposing in- 
terests that it occasioned. 

/ Gilmore says of our mountaineers : ''Their ances- 
tors being too poor or conscientious to hold slaves 
were, more than one hundred years ago, forced back 
to the mountains by the slaveholding planters of the 
seaboard and insulated there, shut out from the world, 
and deprived of schools and churches. The present 
condition of these people is directly traceable to slav- 
ery; for, in making the slave the planter's black- 
smith, carpenter, wheelwright, and man-of -all-work, 
slavery shut every avenue of honest employment 
against the working white man and drove him to the 
mountains or the barren sand hills." 

The aristocratic slaveholder from his river-bottom 
plantation looked with scorn on the slaveless dweller 
among the hills ; while the highlander repaid his scorn 
with high disdain and even hate. For the reason of 
this social antipathy as well as for inherited love of 
the Union, the mountaineers of this vast region that 
almost bisected the territory of the Confederacy stood 
by the national Government in the Civil War. It is a 
question as to who suffered more from the effects of 
slavery, the slave or the slaveless white man. 

The greatest cause of the populating of the hill 
country, however, is yet to be mentioned; it is simply 
the natural increase of the original 
Mountaiii families. This mightiest of all 

causes for the existence of the five 
millions is often overlooked, though it explains what 
might otherwise be inexplicable. The population at 



MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING 59 

first was thin and scattering, not too large to be ac- 
counted for by the several reasons for their immigra- 
tion that have here been adduced. There was abun- 
dant room at first, game was plentiful, and only se- 
lect tracts of land were tilled. 

The fiat of the Creator, "Be fruitful and multiply," 
was heeded ; and the pioneer family in the course of 
years increased to twelve or fifteen ; then harder lines 
were encountered. The young people when they mated 
—and they married very young— took a less desirable 
part of the family domain, built a cabin, cleared a 
few rocky acres, and in turn began their struggle for 
existence. Game disappeared, trade was non-exist- 
ent, time grew harder ; and faster grew the^ families. 
This process continued for several generations, and 
now we see the natural and inevitable result. 

A sight that may still be witnessed is that of a 
young mountaineer at work, in the face of the jovial 
gibes of his friends, clearing for himself and his "in- 
tended," or his already "obtained," a field or so on a 
hillside that has never felt the profanation of a plow. 
The field will provide corn for his "pone" bread; and 
a few razor-backed pigs grown, not fattened, on the 
mast in the woods will furnish his "side-meat." ■ 

The writer, not long since, conducted the funeral 
of a mother in Israel who united with the Presby- 
terian Church as long ago as 1837. She had a hun- 
dred and six direct descendants— eight children, 
fifty-two grandchildren, and forty-six great-grand- 
children. The writer also recently matriculated a 
new student from a cove, a splendidly developed 



6o THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

young woman, who told him that she had to earn her 
own way, "for," said she, ''father has sixteen chil- 
dren." And the sixteen all had the same mother. 

Since these human bees from our mountain hives 
almost invariably settle just as nearly in sight of the 
old bee-gum as possible, there need be no wonder that 
the woods are full of them. 'There is no suspicion of 
"race suicide" in the Appalachians.- Out of moun- 
taineers' loins proceed armies. A corporal's guard 
becomes a great people. 

A staid little towhead, almost crowded out of the 
cabin by his multitudinous brothers and sisters, once 
said, and it was his parents of whom he was speak- 
ing, "Clay and Sally Ann has heaps of children;" 
and as the youngsters were gamboling about the cabin 
door, there were literally "heaps" of them. A mother 
of ten, when felicitated upon her large family, replied 
in a deprecatory way: "Seems like a body ought to 
have at least a dozen children." Mountain mothers 
seem to hold the Israelitish attitude on child-bearing. 

When we take into account facts such as these just 
related, and the additional one that early death is 
rare in the mountains, we can easily see that fe- 
cundity and longevity unite to make the Appalachian 
problem a growing one. The millions did not go 
there; as Topsy might say, "They just growed there."^ 
And in the near future even greater clans will people 
the rocky hills and prove that the story of Deucalion 
and Pyrrha is no fable, but rather is veritable his- 
tory that repeats itself even in the reputedly childless 
twentieth century. 



MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING 6i 

This mountain region, without great help from im- 
migration, increased in population ten and eight- 
tenths per cent, during the decade closing in 1910. 
Graphic maps showing the relative number of births 
in the different sections of our country bear eloquent 
testimony to the prolific fruitfulness of the Appalach- 
ians. 

Such are some of the reasons that account for the 

peopling of the Appalachians. But why do not the 

mountaineers emigrate to Okla- 

Why Remain in ^^^^ ^^d elsewhere, as do the 

the Mountains? ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^jj^^^P ^^^ ^^^^ 

four or five generations held to the same simple life? 
Many of the young men who have come into con- 
tact with people from the outside world do go into 
the *'flatwoods," and even migrate 
Few Do Migrate ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ j^ ^^e early part of 

the nineteenth century many migrated in search of a 
free-soil country, to Indiana, Illinois, and adjacent 
territory ; and their descendants are, as a rule, substan- 
tial citizens of to-day. In an address already referred 
to, delivered before the Indiana Society of Chicago, 
Dr. H. W. Wiley enumerated half a hundred Indian- 
ians who had attained eminence in various fields of 
endeavor and pointed out the fact that they had de- 
scended from southern mountaineer families that had 
removed to Indiana. Soon after the Civil War, many 
mountaineers migrated to Texas; and more recently 
some have gone to Oklahoma, and even as far as 
Oregon and Washington. Most of the people, how- 



62 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

ever, live and die where they were born. This fact 
can be accounted for in different ways. 

The principal reason is found in the inertia that is 
the concomitant of a life of isolation. What has 

been tends to continue. The un- 

Inertia Hinders j .. i • i . 

moved waters no longer quicken; 

they rather stagnate. Only give Nature time, and she 
will even yet produce fossils ; and surely in the moun- 
tains there is "all the time in the world." The lack 
of prosperity induces shiftlessness, and where shift- 
lessness rules, there is little initiative; and it requires 
a strong spirit of initiative to break loose from time 
immemorial associations. Conservatism dominates in 
the secluded sections of the Appalachians. 
^ The mountaineer's bump of inhabitativeness is fully 
developed. He has a strong attachment to his native 
heath, its bracing air, its refreshing 
A?x 1^ i water, its unrestrained liberty. 

" 'Pears like I cain't live nowfiere 
else," he tells you. ' He does not know nostalgia by 
that name, but in exile he may die of it. 

"Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms. 
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more." 

i Ambition lies dormant in his nature. There is 

nothing in his immediate environ- 
Ambition ^^^^ ^^ arouse it; and all else is 

Dormant , , . ,t. 

vague and uncertam rumor. His 

forebears, so far as he has any knowledge of them. 



liA .*it.X^- -•^'~ 



A^. 



'"9:.' 







03 

H 






K 



MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING 63 

have been content "jest to rock along" ; and, pray, 
why should he set himself up to be any better than 
his own kith and kin, past or present? 

"Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small, 
He sees his little lot the lot of all." 

The geologist speaks of "the Appalachian type of 
folding"; and so may we speak of the folding away 
of the human ambitions petrified in the strata of Ap- 
palachian existence. In these hills nature yields to a 
man's utmost endeavor hardly more than enough to 
keep soul and body together; and if there is a sur- 
plus of products, there is no market for that surplus. 
So the mountaineer yields to the orderings of fate, 
and throws away ambition, and contents himself with 
raising what is absolutely necessary for actual exist- 
ence, and philosophically comforts himself with the 
backwoods aphorism, "Enough's a-plenty." 

A native timidity also dominates the mountaineer. 
Bold as a lion in physical danger, he shrinks from 

the society of the lowlands. 
iimiQity Though he makes occasional trips 

to the valley town to sell apples, 
huckleberries, chestnuts, and "sang-root," he is not at 
his ease until his striding steps are again turned 
mountainward. 

In addition to these reasons for his home-keeping, 

there is what to him is the decisive 

Precedent ^^^ ^^ ^ l^^j^ ^^ precedent. No 

Lacking <• , • at • r n », 1 <• t • 

one of his km-folks ever left his 

native hills, and why should he leave them? Until 



64 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

a tangible and success-attended precedent is set for 
him by some one he trusts — and probably even then — 
he will remain just where birth and breeding have 
placed him. 

Their extreme poverty discourages those who 
would leave the mountains from doing so. They bat- 

^ ^ tie for existence with sterile, un- 

Poverty Prevents , , • -i -ru i 

•^ productive soil, ihe narrow val- 

leys and the mountainsides, so steep that sometimes 
they must be cultivated by the hoe if at all,' return to 
''the man with the hoe" — or for that matter to the 
women and children with the hoe — only enough com 
and potatoes to provide for the daily bread. * No 
money to pay for removal to a new country or for 
setting up new homes comes to hand to give the abil- 
ity to realize the dream of new homes in a new world. / 
? Whether our philosophy may or may not fully ex- 
plain the fact, a fact it nevertheless remains that, 

rude and inhospitable and, in popu- 
bo, I'opulous j^j. Qpinion, sparsely settled as 

Mountains ^- • .1 a 11. 

those regions are, the Appalachians 

abound in human beings, as in the other works of 
God; that those people are there in most cases from 
no fault of their ancestors or of themselves ; and that 
they deserve our sympathy and not our scorn. 



CHAPTER VI 
The Problem's Reason for Being 

The problem has been stated to be: ''How are 

we to bring certain belated and submerged Appa- 

^, ^ , , lachian blood brethren of ours out 

The Problem - ^ ^u i ^ 

Restated ^ completer enjoyment of 

twentieth-century civilization and 
Christianity?" We have seen that many of the pio- 
neers in the mountains were of superior lineage and 
of the best development of their day. How are we 
to account for the lapsing of many of their descend- 
ants to a lower civilization than was that which their 
forefathers enjoyed? 

The answer to this question will decide the amount 
of exculpation that may be accorded the contemporary 
mountaineers, and the degree of sympathy that may 
be felt for them. There is a world-wide difference 
between the degeneracy that Nordau tells of, and the 
provincial limitations that we find in mountain dis- 
tricts. 

Theirs is a case of what has been termed "arrested 
development." While they have 

Qmlnte^^" '^''?'^ '^^"^ ^"^ ^^^^ P^^ ^^ what 

their fathers had several genera- 
tions ago, the worid has forged far ahead, and left 

65 



66 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

them far in the rear. There is a great difference be- 
tween the America of 1780 and the America of 1914, 
a century and a third later. There are some purely 
mountain communities that for various local and 
providential reasons have substantially retained the 
high degree of intelligence and force of character with 
which the first settlers endowed them. True, their 
characteristics belong to colonial days rather than to 
those of the twentieth century. 

On the other hand, there are, doubtless, other com- 
munities in the mountains, as elsewhere, that started 
with comparatively low standards of intelligence and 
conduct, for, though their founders were of noble 
race, they themselves were but indifferent representa- 
tives of that race. Even the Edinburgh, the Glasgow, 
and the Londonderry of to-day can parallel from ''the 
masses," as distinguished from their "classes," any 
cases of departure from racial excellence that we may 
discover among the mountain "masses." 

But, after deducting these two classes from the 
total of our purely mountain people, the fact still re- 
mains, and is fully confirmed and established by local 
history and family tradition, that the present genera- 
tion, in many cases, lacks much of the inteUigence and 
culture and force of character for which their pioneer 
ancestry were distinguished when they entered the 
mountains to make homes for themselves and their 
children. 

There are, however, several good and sufficient 
reasons to be adduced to account for the losses sus- 



PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING 67 

tained by these children of the original mountaineers, 

where losses have been experienced. They are such 

as merely need mentioning in 

Reasons for the ^^.^^^ ^^ ^^ recognized by every 

student of history as being real 
and adequate and precedented. 

Confessedly, many who settled in the mountains 
were less energetic and aspiring than were their 
brethren that pushed forward to 
Nei\b^ ^^^® the better lands in the valley be- 

low. Professional hunters are 
poor farmers. The influence that such people would 
exert upon those possessed of more energy would in- 
crease by intermarriage and constant example and in- 
tercourse. In such society the ambitious and ener- 
getic family would be unpleasantly conspicuous, and 
feel so much out of place as to lead it to seek other 
environment, or to abandon some of its energy so as 
to do in the mountains as the mountaineers do. 

Indeed, the fact that in their isolation the moun- 
taineers have not enjoyed the stimulus of a varied 
society accounts for part of that 

Sockt^^ ^^"^^ retrograde movement. "All na- 
ture's difference keeps all nature's 
peace"; and society's differences prevent social stag- 
nation. Solitary confinement, even within the walls of 
the mountains, has its disadvantages. Society's range 
of ideas is decided by the kind of society that exists. 
In some of the more isolated mountain districts there 
has been, owing to their isolation, too much inter- 
marriage, even; and what injures European royalty 



68 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

does not improve mountain society. Premature mar- 
riage also has the unhappy result of causing some of 
the women to age prematurely. 

Dr. W. S. Plumer Bryan has well said: 

*'They have been reduced to their present condition 
of poverty and ignorance by the strenuous conditions 
under which they have been compelled to live. No 
one who has never himself experienced those condi- 
tions can realize how terrible is their effect upon the 
individual life, or how great their effect must be upon 
the life of a family from generation to generation. To 
live on the mountainside and perhaps in the depths 
of a forest, without roads, without means of trans- 
portation, on such products as the soil outside the 
cabin door provides, and in climates of great severity, 
will tell upon any man or woman, or family or stock, 
however fine its origin may be. 

"The physical effect is only exceeded by the mental. 
Imagine your own condition if you were compelled to 
live year after year in the same house, and with the 
same surroundings, engaged in the drudgery of the 
house or in the drudgery of the field. The nearest 
neighbor's house is often too far for a visit; and if 
it be near enough, the house is often but little better 
than the one from which the visitor comes. The con- 
versation centers on the crops and the household 
events, with only now and then a vague report from 
the great world outside. 

"Anyone who would not degenerate under hard 
conditions like these would be more than human ; and 



PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING 69 

in my opinion these strenuous conditions are quite 
enough to account for the pecuHarities and deficien- 
cies of the class under discussion." 

After the days had largely passed when the greater 
part of a living could be secured by the hunt or chase, 
and the mountaineers found them- 
LacK 01 incen- selves constrained to have recourse 
to the unproductive soil for the 
corn and cane and potatoes that must supplement their 
ham and bacon in sustaining life, they were taught by 
sad annual experience that their best efforts could 
not insure any adequate return for their labor; that 
the thin sandy soil never would yield abundantly 
enough under their methods of farming to pay ex- 
cept niggardly for the toil expended. 

If it is every season demonstrated that by no ex- 
penditure of toil or energetic effort can farming be 
made remunerative, why, pray, should men expend 
that hopeless toil and energy? Let enough be se- 
cured to supply the simplest wants and then let all 
bootless labor be avoided. By Nature's decree they 
were destined to hopeless poverty; then why not sub- 
mit to the decree, eat the modest fare provided, drink 
the delicious water gushing from a thousand springs, 
and be as merry as such a hard life may allow ? 

No reward for labor, no stimulus to labor ! 

"A Scotchman even will not work when there is no 
incentive." Idleness was a logical result of despair 
of substantial reward for industry. Good wages for 
peeling bark or for work in the lumber camp has in 



70 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

many cases proven a specific for what was supposed 
to be inveterate laziness. 

Not only was there the absence of reward for labor 
on the little home place, but there was also the al- 
most complete deprivation of op- 
portumties for tradmg with others 
of the same neighborhood or of more distant com- 
munities. For a long time there were not even the 
lumber and the tan-bark industries. Almost every- 
thing that was consumed in the cabin was produced 
on the place. Even the limited wardrobe was woven 
on the old-fashioned loom; and the illumination was 
provided by beeswax tapers, or tallow dips, or "light 
pine" torches. 

Thus trade was severely limited to a little neigh- 
boring swapping and bartering. The explanation of 
the peculiar hold that "moonshining" has had in the 
mountains has been the fact that it provided a home 
market — the only one, in many instances — for the 
corn that was raised. In the typical mountain glen, 
the wants are sternly restricted to what Nature pro- 
vides. There can be no considerable trade without 
somewhat adequate means of communication and 
transportation. 

Almost the only means of communication among 

the southern mountains has been that provided by the 

rocky, gully-gashed roads leading 

Lack of Means of ^^^^ ^^^ settlement to another. 

Communication . . ^ ^. ... . 

As a glance at the map will show, 

the region is singularly devoid of navigable water- 
courses, such as in other sections of our country pro- 



PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING 71 

vided comfortable and inexpensive means of inter- 
communication even before the days of railroads. A 
corresponding lack of railroad facilities has existed 
until very recently, and even yet exists to a notable 
degree. A journey of fifty or a hundred miles over 
the almost impassable mountain roads will readily 
explain what at first seems so strange to most visi- 
tors to the mountains— the fact that so many moun- 
taineers have never traveled beyond the limits of their 
native county. 

The lack of trade and the prohibitive distance from 
all markets naturally resulted in the almost complete 
dearth of money in the practically 
Lack of Money quarantined cabins and coves. 
Some economists are ready to maintain the thesis 
that the preservation of society demands the coinage 
of money; and all students of sociology must agree 
that "no money" does undoubtedly mean the decline 
of civilization. Which is the cause and which the ef- 
fect, one may sometimes be puzzled to decide, but the 
fact is demonstrated beyond all question. Many Ap- 
palachian mountaineers do not have ten dollars in 
money from one year's end to the other. No money 
and no trade cruelly exclude means of comfort and 
all books and other aids to mental culture and illumi- 
nation. The writer once visited a cabin in which the 
only literature was an out-of-date copy of a patent- 
medicine almanac. Money is an advance agent of 
civilization. 

One of the most evident and potent reasons for the 



72 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

retrograde movement has been the lack of public 
schools— and of any schools, for that matter. The 

Lack of Schools "^^""^^^"s ^'^ to the nation a per- 
manent object-lesson of the abso- 
lute necessity of popular education to safeguard even 
our most virile stock. In ante-bellum days there were 
in the Appalachians practically no schools. Since the 
war there has been much improvement, but yet not 
much until recently. Owing to the small school 
funds of the states involved, and to the fact that 
these funds have been prorated according to the enu- 
meration of the school population, the sparsely set- 
tled regions of the mountains have had few schools, 
and far between; and even these schools in many 
cases have been open but two or three months in the 
year. 

A gratifying advance is now being made, and surely 
none too soon. It has long been ardently prayed for 
and industriously worked for by the friends of the 
mountaineers. 

^ That the significance of even the present educa- 
tional conditions of the southern mountains may be 

Educational T^'^^t' '"''^^'''^ "'^'' '' "^'^'^ 

Statistics ^^^" ^^^ presentation of the bare 

statistics of the Census of 1910. 
The following three tabular views give the statistics, 
not of the entire nine mountain states, but only of the 
two hundred and fifty-one mountain counties of these 
states. 

I. The population of the mountainous portion of 
the Appalachian states is as follows: 




o 
a 



PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING 73 



Total 
Population 



Total 
White 



Native 

White 

Parentage 



Foreign 

White 

Parentage 



Alabama 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Maryland 

North Carolina 
South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Virginia. •;•;.• 
West Virginia . 

Total. 



681.867 
315,449 
580,919 
184,806 
394,018 
204,601 
860,145 
837,319 
1,221,119 



497,624 
270,430 
562,301 
175,660 
359,693 
145,044 
779,113 
713,323 
1,156,817 



471,451 
267,884 
555,685 
151,720 
356,876 
143,450 
762,212 
700,308 
1,042,107 



5,280,243 



4,660,005 



4,451,693 



15,843 
1,789 
4,531 

17,747 

1,688 

982 

11,217 
6,913 

57,638 



108,348 



Alabama 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Maryland 

North Carolina 
South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Virginia 

West Virginia . . 

Total. 



Foreign- 
born 
White 



10,330 

757 

2,085 

6,193 

1,129 

612 

5,684 

6,102 

57,072 



89,964 



Negro 



184,098 
45,003 
18,421 
9,136 
32,842 
59,549 
80,922 

123,880 
64,173 



618,024 



All 
Other 



145 

16 

197 

10 

1,483 

8 

110 

116 

129 



2,214 



2. The number of persons ten years of age and 
over, by nativity and race, is as follows : 





Total 


Native 
White 


Foreign- 
born 
White 


Negro 


Alabama 


496,075 
223,462 
398,771 
141,499 
277,937 
145,331 
625,349 
609,845 
903,822 


345,039 
190,478 
382,459 
128,411 
251,949 
102,704 
656,427 
511,870 
798,150 


9,964 

733 

2,045 

6,054 

1,102 

598 

5,519 

5,891 

54,646 


140,970 


Georgia 


32,236 


Kentucky 


14,137 


Maryland 


7,024 


North Carolina 


23,843 


South Carolina 


42,023 


Tennessee 


63,335 


Virginia 


91,994 


West Virginia 


50,925 






Total 


3,822,091 


3,267,487 


86,552 


466,487 







74 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 



3. The number of illiterate persons ten years of 
age or older is as follows: 





Total 


Native 
White 


Foreign- 
born 
White 


Negro 


Alabama 


78,489 
34,015 
73,820 
6,604 
45,671 
28,589 
82,818 
85,001 
74,866 


33,878 
24,299 
69,673 
4,230 
38,739 
13,828 
55,836 
67,529 
51,407 


1,442 

44 

278 

811 

37 

48 

824 

384 

13.075 


43,206 


Georgia 


9,671 


Kentucky 


3,796 


Maryland 


1,501 


North Carolina 


6,518 


South Carolina 


14,713 


Tennessee 


28,303 


Virginia 


14,869 


West Virginia 


10.347 






Total 


509,873 


359,419 


16,943 


132,924 







Lack of Books 



The sway of illiteracy is a most malign one. To 
be shut out from the sweet world of sacred Scrip- 
ture, of science, of history, of biog- 
raphy, and of literature in general, 
is to live in the shadow of a perpetual eclipse of in- 
telligence, and in a twilight that borders hard on the 
region and shadow of mental death. This illiteracy 
alone is sufficient to account for whatever deteriora- 
tion may be observed among our kinsmen of the 
mountains. There is no race of men on earth, be it 
French or German or Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon 
or Scotch-Irish, that can either attain to its true 
sphere or retain that sphere without the help of 
schools and of the periodical and book-world. 

Another cause of the deterioration in the moun- 
tains can hardly be emphasized too 
Lack of Educated strongly. It is the lack of an edu- 
cated ministry, and, indeed, the 
lack of educated leadership of any kind. Even the 



PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING 75 

Highlands of Scotland would have sadly degenerated 
had there been no educated ministry to bring weekly 
influences of an ennobling sort to bear upon the peo- 
ple. To be deprived of an intelligent ministry would 
be calamitous enough even in a community of books 
and lectures ; but to lack it where there were no other 
educated leaders, and few, if any, books, would be 
fatal to high ideals or attainments. The educated 
leaders, so necessary even in the most highly enlight- 
ened community, have been sadly lacking in the se- 
cluded mountain districts. If our hillsmen had only 
known the pity of such a loss, dismal and unending 
indeed would have been the coronach with which they 
would have bewailed the loss : 

"He is gone on the mountain, 

He is lost to the forest 
Like a summer-dried fountain 
When our need was the sorest." 

Let it be said here, however, that any generaliza- 
tion regarding the mountain preachers that would ig- 
nore the splendid service that has been rendered to 
civilization and Christianity in thousands of com- 
munities in the southern highlands by numberless 
humble servants of God who have preached his glori- 
ous gospel with all the powers they had, would be at 
once ungracious and unjust. 

From the pioneer days God has had his loyal serv- 
ants of different faiths that, often at their own 
charges and often at much heroic self-denial, have 
for long lifetimes called the mountaineers to repent- 



'j^ THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

ance, right living, and the Saviour of men. Uncom- 
missioned by mission boards, unpraised and unsup- 
ported by outside bodies or churches, uncomplain- 
ingly and unflaggingly they have served Him who had 
called them to be prophets of the Great Smokies. 
And they have fought drunkenness, licentiousness, 
murder, and the other evils of the mountains, and 
have fearlessly raised a standard about which the re- 
deemed might rally. They were men 

"Who all their lives in silence wrought, 
And then their graves in silence sought," 

never having suspected that they were, what God 
some day in the presence of all the church triumphant 
will proclaim them, worthy to reign over many celes- 
tial cities. 

No ''Old Mortality" can chisel deeper their names 
in orderly kirkyards, for the poor parsons of the hills 
lie in hillocks unmarked unless by a couple of sand- 
stones picked up from the rocky hillside by the kindly 
grave-diggers. But the God of all the earth keeps 
their names graven on his mighty and loving hand. 
Their fame is great in heaven, and let us not forget 
them — whether they were Wesleyan circuit-riders, or 
Lutheran ministers, or Baptist preachers, or our own 
Presbyterian parsons. 

But after we have done full justice, if that is pos- 
sible, to the faithful though often illiterate mountain 
preachers, it is of course a notorious fact that there 
have been many others, in many communities, that 
have not been fitted by culture or nature or grace 



PROBLEM'S REASON FOR BEING ^^ 

for the position of leaders of God's people. Illiterate, 
narrow, bigoted, and sometimes wrong in life, such 
men have been blind leaders of the blind, and both 
preacher and people have fallen, sorely injured, into 
the mountain ditch. 

Where such leadership has existed, the confusion 
of thought and ethical standards has been great and 
sad. On the other hand, whenever educated, or at 
least somewhat educated, and naturally intelligent and 
wise men have stood for God in their strength of 
character and zeal, they have had an influence that 
would be utterly impossible in the lowlands. In those 
exceptional cases in which our own church or some 
other has, through a succession of educated ministers, 
stood by the work for generations past there is light 
to-day on the mountain, and the fruit of the handful 
of corn shakes like Lebanon in that light. 

It is among the unschooled, the bookless, and the 

pastorless classes that false teachers find their prey. 

As the writer has personally and 

Mormonism , ,. ,. • . r 

repeatedly seen the emissaries of 

the Mormon abomination plying their mission of per- 
version and seduction among the Smokies, he has felt 
the same deep indignation that on other occasions he 
has felt upon hearing, at night, in his mountain vaca- 
tion camp, the baying of the bloodthirsty dogs in too 
successful pursuit of bleating and panic-stricken 
sheep. And what must the Shepherd of the sheep 
feel as he sees his flocks on a thousand hills the quarry 
of the tireless wolves of the West? 



78 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

A doctrine in vogue nowadays is evolution. There 

is certainly a very strong social tendency that well 

merits the name "de"-volution. 

Devolution Versus Unless the social environment and 

Evolution , . . , , 

the forces of labor and mtelligence 

and religion are favorable, even Scotch-Irishmen cre- 
ated in the image of God will lose much that would 
otherwise indicate their proud descent. It is by no 
means unprecedented that isolation should injure even 
strong races. As Goldsmith says of the dweller in the 
Alps: 

"But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, 
Each wish contracting fits him to the soil. 
And as refinement stops, from son to son 
Unaltered, unimproved, the manners run." 

It cost the Scotch-Irish Protestants, besieged by 
James II within the walls of their Londonderry, the 
most heroic and strenuous endeavors on their own 
part, even under wise and able leadership, to save the 
city and to drive the Roman Catholic army from be- 
fore its walls. Indeed, their efforts had to be rein- 
forced by the relief that William III sent them before 
they could see Rosen and the Jacobite army raise the 
siege. Equally will it require heroic and strenuous 
endeavor on the part of the beleaguered mountaineers 
aided by wise and able leaders within, and reinforced 
by expeditions of relief from without, to raise the 
siege, and to make all the mountains what our fore- 
fathers made Londonderry — the happy home of thrift, 
intelligence, morality, and religion. 



CHAPTER VII 

Pioneer Presbyterianism and the Problem 

The dominant faith of the pioneers in a large part 
of the southern Appalachians was Presbyterianism. 

This is fully recognized by the his- 
Presbyterians ^^^.j^^^g ^^ ^^^ different states in 

were Dominant , • , i • i. 

which the mountams he. Says 

Phelan in his ''History of Tennessee" : 

"Religion in our state was coeval with immigration. 
The Presbyterians at first had every outlook to obtain 
a complete ascendancy in the religious thought and 
life of Tennessee. As they went they built churches, 
they estabhshed congregations, they formed pres- 
byteries. Presbyterianism was first upon the ground, 
and its ministers were leading figures in the state. 
They were men of strong characters, and the minds 
of men had not yet been turned to spiritual affairs. 
Besides this, they were practical school-teachers." 

Similar testimony is given by the other historians 

of the border. The first Christian ministers that at- 

. tempted to win the mountains for 

Presbyterians q^^..^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^.^1^ ^^ ^^^j^j^ 

were Active , „ rr., -r. , 

and Knox. The Presbyterian min- 
isters that were found in the first influx of pioneers 

79 



8o THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

lived exceedingly busy lives. They founded churches 
and schools, and took prominent part in all that con- 
tributed to the welfare of the new settlements. They 
participated in military expeditions and in the de- 
fense of cabin and blockhouse and distinguished 
themselves in constructive work in political affairs. 
They were preachers, educators, warriors, statesmen, 
and, in general, men of affairs among the frontiers- 
men with whom they had cast their lot. 

The early ministers were indefatigable preachers, 

addressing the people in private houses, forts, the 

forest, and then in the log churches 

Founded Churches ^^^^ ^^^^^.^^ reverence erected for 

the worship of Almighty God. They organized 
churches at central places, and maintained there di- 
vine services as often as their large fields would al- 
low; and in these centers the people within a radius 
of ten miles or more gathered at the stated services, 
rejoicing that Providence had placed the means of 
grace at their very doors! The woods around the 
church were filled with the horses of the surrounding 
country, for all the people that did not walk came on 
horseback by the various trails that converged at the 
house of God. 

And these primeval preachers planted Christian 
churches in many of the more thickly settled sections 
of the Appalachians. Take Abingdon Presbytery, 
situated in the heart of the Appalachians, as an ex- 
ample. The members of that presbytery reported by 
name to the General Assembly of 1789 twenty-tliree 



PIONEER PRESBYTERIANISM 8i 

congregations, and eight years later twenty-two addi- 
tional ones. The indefatigable efforts of the pastors 
of the pioneers were crowned with most gratifying 
success. 

The pioneers of the church were also the pioneers 
of Christian education and, indeed, of education in 

•n J J « -I- 1 general, upon the frontiers. Their 
rounded Schools . u^, . ^ j i • r-i i 

creed was, Christ and his Church : 

education and its school-house." Practically all the 

frontier forces of education were in their hands. The 

parsons were, almost all of them, pedagogues, "the 

first and the best" that the backwoods young people 

enjoyed. 

In these schools the men that were to shape the 
affairs of state received the rudiments of their educa- 
tion. The ministers, however, were not yet satisfied 
with what they had accomplished, and in a number 
of cases established and conducted academies, in 
which thorough work was done by the founders who 
had, many of them, been educated in the best eastern 
institutions of learning. 

In 1776 the Presbytery of Hanover founded Lib- 
erty Hall Academy, in Lexington, Virginia; but its 
predecessor, Augusta Academy, was established by 
Robert Alexander as early as 1749. Dr. Samuel Doak 
in 1783 secured a charter for Martin Academy, while 
in 181 8 he founded Tusculum Academy. Dr. Heze- 
kiah Balch established in the eighties his school at 
Greeneville. Dr. Isaac Anderson in 1802 founded, 
near Knoxville, Union Academy, popularly known as 



82 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

"the log college," out of which grew the present 

Maryville College. And there were other academies 

scattered throughout the Presbyterian marches. 

All the early colleges established within the range 

of the Appalachians were Presbyterian. Out of the 

day-school grew the academy; and 
Founded Colleges ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^j. 

lege department which was planned, founded, and con- 
ducted by Presbyterian parsons. Without other en- 
dowment than their fervent love for God and his 
mountain people, and their indomitable purpose and 
perseverance, these consecrated men conducted col- 
leges that served the cause of God even more grandly 
than the founders dared to dream. 

The story of the Appalachians would be only im- 
perfectly told were no mention made of the splendid 
service of Washington and Lee University, as it is 
now called; Washington (Tennessee), chartered in 
1795; Greeneville and Tusculum, chartered as Greene- 
ville in 1794, and as Tusculum in 1844, and now 
called Tusculum; Blount College, now the University 
of Tennessee, founded in 1794; and Maryville Col- 
lege, founded as The Southern and Western Theologi- 
cal Seminary, in 1819. Hampden Sidney, founded in 
1775, Centre College, founded in 1819, and Cumber- 
land University, founded by the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church in 1842, though located outside the 
Appalachians, contributed to their illumination. These 
several institutions provided many of the leaders of 
Church and State not merely for the Appalachians, 
but also for the great Southwest. 



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PIONEER PRESBYTERIANISM 83 

Just as the first of these institutions trained among 
many other pioneer educators, the founders and first 
presidents of Washington, Blount, Maryville, Tus- 
culum, and several other colleges, so did these insti- 
tutions in their turn raise up a host of educators for 
the Southwest. Indeed, most of the professional men 
and other leaders of that great region received what 
training was theirs in the humble halls of these col- 
leges of the frontier. The records of these institu- 
tions, where any records have survived the ravages 
of time and of the Civil War, bear eloquent tribute 
to the unparalleled service our Presbyterian fore- 
fathers of the log colleges rendered in the making of 
the West. 

The pioneer ministers, in view of their education, 
culture, and ability, were naturally deferred to even in 
political matters. They assisted 
the^Stat^^^^^ materially in the foundation of the 

political institutions of the fron- 
tier. The elders also of the Presbyterian churches 
were commonwealth builders of no mean importance 
and ability. 

Among the laymen trained in the school of experi- 
ence and some of them educated in the log colleges, 
there were many who contributed largely to the estab- 
lishing of civil government in the new settlements, 
and, as the years went by, to the foundation of terri- 
tory and state. A book could be written specifying 
such political service rendered the cause of the nascent 
states of the Appalachians. The heroes of the Ala- 



84 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

mance, while foes of tyranny, were champions of 
civil government. 

The early ministers of the Appalachians were, like 
Paul, abundant in labors, in journeyings often, in 

perils in the wilderness, in weari- 
And were j^^gg ^^^ painfulness, in watchinsrs 

Successful r • t 11- . Ti 

often, m hunger and thirst, m cold 

and nakedness, besides being burdened with the care 
of all the churches. Like Paul, too, their labors were 
blessed of heaven. They laid the foundations of 
Christian commonwealths, tamed the wildness of 
frontier human nature, and won great numbers of 
souls for Him who preached the Sermon on the 
Mount. They established many churches, and replen- 
ished the fires on many family altars. They never 
suspected themselves of heroism, but their figures 
loom up through the mists of more than a century as 
worthies of true heroic race. Inspired by their creed 
and more still by their Christ, they consecrated their 
learning and their lives to the Christianization of 
their brethren of the Scotch-Irish border. 

Their own generation might well rise up to call 

them blessed, while succeeding generations have not 

done well if they have forgotten 

And Their Work ^j^^^ ^j^^^^ ^^^^^ chaplains of the 

wilderness did for the militant fa- 
thers of the frontier. Those faithful men builded 
not so successfully as they wished, but more wisely 
than they knew. While, for reasons that shall be enu- 
merated, the purely mountain regions were not ade- 
quately or permanently possessed, the more thickly 



PIONEER PRESBYTERIANISM 85 

populated sections were occupied by presbyteries and 
synods, which are to-day continuing and extending 
the work of the fathers. The statistical tables of the 
assemblies of the various Presbyterian churches occu- 
pying the field tell of the work that is being done. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Later Presbyterianism and the Problem 

How did it come to pass that Presbyterianism 
failed to hold the predominance in the country after 

the pioneer period? There are 
Partial Failure of ^ causes that conspired to limit 
Presbyterianism . , <• t-> i, . • • 

the spread of rresbyteriamsm. 

Nowhere does the creed or the polity of any denomi- 
nation appeal without exception to all classes of peo- 
ple and to all types of mind in the community. This 
is as true and as natural as the fact that no political 
party has ever commanded the allegiance of all the 
people at any period of our national history. 

The rapid decay of education that followed the set- 
tling in the mountains necessarily made a church less 
welcome that insisted so much 
Decay of Educa- upon an educated ministry. The 

T TTT 1 Presbyterian ministers recosrnized 

Less Welcome -^ 

this fact, and very naturally many 

of them went where they were wanted, and where 
they could take their families with fair hope of sup- 
porting and educating them. They could hardly be 
expected to go where they were not especially wel- 
come. 

86 



LATER PRESBYTERIANISM 87 

It was physically impossible for the pioneer preach- 
ers to reach the recesses of so vast a parish. The ter- 
ritory contains, as we have seen, 
erri ory more than one hundred thousand 

square miles; and the long and 
lonely mountain roads are almost impassable during 
a large part of the year. As well expect a handful 
of merchants to do business for all the broad Appa- 
lachians. The population was far more sparsely set- 
tled in the early days than at present; and so all that 
the preacher could find at the end of a weary journey 
might be only two or three families. 

Let it be remembered that those were the days of 

small things — beginnings only, in religious matters — 

in America. There was no Gen- 

Ministers ^^.^j Assembly until Hanover Pres- 

Too Few , , \ . ^ 

bytery was thirty-five years old. 

So were Lexington, Abingdon, and Transylvania pres- 
byteries older than the Assembly. There were only 
266 Presbyterian ministers in the entire United States 
in 1799. If the 9,410 ministers even now belonging 
to our branch of the Presbyterian Church were to set- 
tle in the southern Appalachians, there would be room 
for all, and a parish of 568 souls for every one. The 
ministers of the early day had to be provided by the 
frontier church, for the demands for ministers by the 
rest of the rapidly growing country exhausted the en- 
tire supply; and this was true in an epoch at the be- 
ginning of which there was no Presbyterian theologi- 
cal seminary in the United States. Practically no 



88 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

more volunteers could be expected from the North 
and the East. 

If the cost of an education in these better days of 
the twentieth century hinders many from entering the 
Presbyterian ministry, as it confessedly does, what 
must have been true in those days of hardship and 
struggle for existence, when every male inhabitant 
was needed for the clearing of the wilderness, and 
"the winning of the West"? The few frontier min- 
isters did, amid their many other toils, educate such 
young men as they could find, who could support 
themselves, and who, they thought, would be useful 
in the ministry; but what were they among so many? 
The Presbyterian Church adhered to its time-honored 
requirements of a thorough training for the ministry, 
and made no modification of its conditions for en- 
trance into its ministry. All its ministers even in the 
mountains must have attained its high standard of 
education. Other churches profited by this fact, while 
the founding of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church 
in 1810 by some Presbyterian ministers of the Ken- 
tucky frontier, was a protest against this rigid ad- 
herence to the law of "the book" on the part of the 
ancestral Church. 

The pioneer was practically penniless, so far as 
money was concerned ; and after he had kept the wolf 

of poverty from his own door, he 
No Church j^^j j-^^l^ strength to devote to the 

Boards - , , , ,,^, 

support of the church. What was 

needed then is what is immensely useful now — a 
home-mission board that should tide the backwoods- 



LATER PRESBYTERIANISM 89 

men over the days of privation until they might be 
able to care for themselves. But not till 1802 did the 
General Assembly even appoint a Standing Commit- 
tee on Home Missions ; and at the end of a generation 
the entire income of the Board of Missions was only 
$27,654. The entire income of even the present great 
Home Mission Board would be found sadly inade- 
quate were that Board to attempt to supply the gos- 
pel to all the people of the southern highlands. Had 
there been a strong Home Board in the days of the 
pioneers, the story in the southern mountains would, 
however, have been very different. But the whole 
land was then mission territory without any organiza- 
tion that could assist in its evangelization; so the 
places that could support the gospel enjoyed the dis- 
pensation of it; while the poorer sections were, too 
many of them, forced to dispense with it. The Sus- 
tentation Scheme worked wonders in the Highlands 
of Scotland, and a similar scheme with financial back- 
ing would have greatly improved the condition of 
affairs in the American highlands. 

There was a constantly enlarging field of work lying 

to the south and west, and the ministers heard the 

insistent calls from every direc- 

Went W^t^^ t'°"' "^°"'^ "^^^ ^"'l help us !" It 
was merely a choice among mission 
fields, and many chose to go westward. A very large 
number of the early ministers of the Southwest and 
of the Northwest were originally from East Tennessee 
and the valleys still farther eastward. 



90 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

Indeed, the Presbyterian churches of the Appa- 
lachians have been, from the first, constantly depleted 
in strength by a steady and uninterrupted stream of 
emigrants to the West. Hundreds of churches from 
Indiana to Texas and across to Oregon were founded 
largely by the Presbyterians of the mountains. In 
some cases entire churches removed bodily to the 
West. 

The workers in the mountains saw all that we now 

see of the need and the strategic importance of their 

position, and some of them made 

But Workers Did herculean efforts to meet their op- 

Tneir Utmost x v t^u j r ^i. 

portumty. i he records of the pres- 
byteries and synods that had to do with the region 
bore frequent testimony to the solicitude those bodies 
felt, and to the efforts they made to reach the desti- 
tute fields in the mountains. Long-distance criticism 
of the fathers' work would be silenced if the critics 
were to do as the writer has had the pleasure of do- 
ing — read the entire official records of one hundred 
and fifteen years' proceedings of one of those Appa- 
lachian presbyteries. The wants of the field were 
keenly realized, and noble efforts to meet those needs 
were made by a pitifully inadequate force. Their cry 
was an echo of the Master's : "Pray ye therefore the 
Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers 
into his harvest." 

Rev. Isaac Anderson, D.D., who had been educated 
at Liberty Hall Academy in old Rockbridge County, 
Virginia, found himself in early manhood an ordained 




B 

o ^ 



^ 












LATER PRESBYTERIANISM 91 

minister settled in the center of East Tennessee. As 

he viewed the rehgious destitution of the valley and 

the mountains, his heart bled for 

Southern and the hurt of the daughter of his 

Western Theologi- j^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^ ^ -^ j^. 

cal Seminary r r "^ . ^ 

age to seven-year-old Princeton 

Theological Seminary in the hope that he could in- 
duce some of the young men about to graduate from 
that school of the prophets to reinforce the inadequate 
band of toilers in the Tennessee mountains. In vain 
was his pleading, however, for were not many fields 
nearer home in dire need? And why not ''begin at 
Jerusalem" ? 

Sorely disappointed, but dauntless in his devotion 
and courage, this Presbyterian prince turned his 
horse's head homeward. During the two weeks' 
journey through the Shenandoah Valley and onward 
to his home, the shadow of the Appalachians was 
upon his spirit and conscience. In that shadow a 
mighty resolve was made — that since he could not 
bring the Princeton boys to his help, he would found 
a Princeton for the Southwest. He soon laid his plans 
before the newly formed Synod of Tennessee, and that 
body founded at Maryville The Southern and Western 
Theological Seminary, With a very little amount of 
help from man and with a vast amount of help from 
God's grace and providence, he put the rich gift of 
his life into the seminary, with the one purpose of 
raising up workers for the great mountain field of the 
South. 

His broad shoulders bore an Atlas's load of toil, re- 
sponsibility, and privations, till they tottered and fell 



92 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

under the burden. But he had given thirty-eight 
years to his seminary — or Maryville College, as it 
came to be called — and had the unspeakable joy of 
seeing, besides hundreds of trained Christian laymen, 
as many as one hundred and fifty of the graduates 
of his school enter the Presbyterian ministry. At 
times a majority in some of the mountain presbyteries 
were graduates of his training. And no one can com- 
pute the indirect influence of his great work and life 
upon the other churches of the highlands. God 
showed in Dr. Anderson what one consecrated life 
could do for the redemption of the mountains. 

We may here anticipate a little. The troubles that 
led to the organization of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church, and to the division 
The Divisions of ^f ^^^ mother church into the Old 
Presbyterianism , ^^ 01111 1 

and New Schools, had perhaps a 

more paralyzing effect in the Appalachians than else- 
where, because of the already weak condition of the 
church. These schisms resulted in the extinction of 
the church in some places, and reduced it in many 
other sections to a state of mere existence. And, as 
if these internal difficulties were not enough, the na- 
tional strife culminating in the Civil War added an- 
other line of cleavage to an already twice-bisected 
church. Thus several disunions took away much 
Presbyterian strength. 

Few who were not present in the section can im- 
agine the overthrow of church life that was wrought, 
especially by the cataclysm of the Civil War. The 
most conscientious and earnest men on both sides of 



LATER PRESBYTERIANISM 93 

the controversy, including no small number of elders 
and ministers, went to the front, and armies of them 
offered up their invaluable lives as a pledge of their 
consecration to what they deemed right. 

Let us revert now to the condition in which the 
pioneers discovered themselves when the Presbyterian 

Church found the region too im- 

Other Denomi- 4 -.u ^.u 

,. ^ "^" mense to cover with the resources 

at its command. There could not 

be an educated ministry provided or supported in most 

sections of the mountains, and so the region was 

thrown upon its own devices as it sought to secure a 

ministry. 

Since educated ministers could not be found, or sup- 
ported if found, men without special education were 
necessarily made preachers. The denominations that 
did not have an educational standard for the ministry 
took the places of the absent Presbyterians. A great 
number of these ministers served absolutely without 
compensation, except the reward of conscience that 
comes to men who please Christ. None of them re- 
ceived any adequate salary; and so preachers were 
farmers for six days of the week. They organized 
their churches and the Presbyterians in the mountains 
united with those churches. 

Many of these men preached the gospel with all 
earnestness, and were of untold benefit to the moun- 
tains in which they prosecuted their simple-hearted 
ministry. The pity is that their number was inade- 
quate to meet the needs of the mountains. Their sue- 



94 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

cessors are still upholding the cause of Christ in the 
Appalachians, and they deserve generous reinforce- 
ment and appreciative recognition at the hands of all 
Presbyterians. 

Since there was a general lack of organized efforts 
to provide the gospel for all the sections, a consid- 
erable number of thinly populated 

5,°^^^^^^^;^^®^ districts were left without any re- 
Neighborhoods ... 1 , , . r 1 . , 

ligious leadership of any kind, and 

so have remained to this day. The deplorable results 
of such deprivation can easily be imagined. And in 
such communities the children of the Presbyterians, 
to their sorrow, shared in the heart-famine that pre- 
vailed. 

When the Presbyterians in the remoter mountains 
were absorbed by the denominations that took pos- 
session, so far as any possession 
The Post-Pres- ^^^ taken, they did not cease to 
byterian Age . , • , 

impress their hereditary influence 

upon the region in which their distinctive name was 
lost. It is believed that they contributed to the moun- 
tains as a permanent legacy and reminder of their ex- 
istence these distinctive principles : ( i ) The su- 
premacy of the Scriptures; (2) the sovereignty of 
God; (3) man's direct responsibility to God; (4) the 
vital interest of theology; (5) the Christian Sabbath; 
and (6) the dignity of the individual. There were 
several principles that too nearly vanished or passed 
into eclipse in the mountains with the passing of the 
Presbyterians. These were: (i) The imperative 



LATER PRESBYTERIANISM 95 

need of an educated ministry; (2) the equally im- 
perative need of popular education; and (3) the su- 
premely imperative need of the family altar. And the 
Presbyterians of to-day have something to do in re- 
placing these losses of a century of neglect. 



CHAPTER IX 
Present-day Presbyterianism and the Problem 

The formation, the analysis, and the early Presby- 
terian treatment of the Appalachian problem have 
thus far engaged our attention. 
±iow bo ye -g^^ ^ problem exists to be solved, 

the Problem ? . ^ .. r i- i- 1 • 

just as a proposition of Kuclid is 

a Q. E. D. The all-important question then is before 
us — How is this present problem to reach solution? 

The answer is simple though triple ; it is this : The 
Appalachian problem is to be solved by means of 
three agencies — (i) the economic or material de- 
velopment of the mountains; (2) the perfecting of 
the pubHc school system; and (3) the multiplying of 
the uplift agencies of the various churches and of 
other philanthropic organizations. 

In order that industry and energy may have full 

development and exercise in the Appalachians, labor 

must become remunerative, wages 

By Development ^^^^ ^^ available, markets must 

of Economic Life , •, 1 . j 

become accessible, trade must 

flourish. Money and markets will be two mighty mo- 
tives to help arouse the mountains to new life. Amer- 
ican enterprise is at work as never before hastening 

96 



PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM 97 

this first-named element of the solution of our prob- 
lem — that is, the economic or material development 
of the mountains. 

The Appalachians are one of Nature's choicest 
storehouses of treasures. The very air and v^ater are 
assets, and make the mountains the sanitarium of the 
states east of the Mississippi. The tide of immigra- 
tion is beginning to turn from the West to the South. 
Exploitation companies are developing the vast tim- 
ber, mineral, and hydro-electric resources, and pros- 
pectors are penetrating every recess of the mountains 
in search of new investments and hopeful fields of 
operation, and their search is being rewarded. Rail- 
roads and even white lines of turnpikes are steadily 
pushing their way into the mountains. Mines are be- 
ing developed and manufactures established. Agri- 
cultural experiment stations are demonstrating that 
even the mountain soil will in many places yield a 
fair reward for the labor expended upon it. 

This industrial invasion will incidentally introduce 
much evil, but it will prepare the way for better 
things. It will break up the isolation. Better an in- 
vasion that will bring opportunity and prosperity to 
the old mountain home than a hegira down to an un- 
wholesome mill village and child labor therewith on 
the sweltering plain. If the rewards of labor are 
forthcoming, shiftlessness will disappear. The days 
of no trade and no money are passing away. The 
mountaineer sees it, dreads it, and will profit by it. 

The second element in the solution of the Appa- 
lachian problem is the perfecting of the public-school 



98 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

system. In most of the states in which this Appa- 
lachian range is located, there is a very great increase 
of interest and effort in behalf of 
By Perfecting of ^^^ common schools for all the 

Public Schools '^ , r 11 1 . r 1 

people of all the sections of the 
states. Noble, large-minded leaders have been preach- 
ing the new crusade against ignorance and in favor 
of public instruction, and more and more of the peo- 
ple and of their legislators are joining the crusading 
armies. 

Not forever are the children in the insular pos- 
sessions of the United States to have better instruc- 
tion and better educational advantages in general than 
have these mountaineer sons and daughters of the 
American Revolution living in the very heart of the 
republic. Not forever are the teachers of the public 
schools to be recruited principally from the untrained 
youths who have barely passed the grade they at- 
tempt to teach. Not forever is the money invested in 
court-house and jail to exceed that invested in the 
schoolhouses of the county, as is often the case at 
present. 

Largely increased appropriations are being made, 
and many improvements in the system of public 
schools are being introduced. Laws providing for 
compulsory attendance are being enacted. Progress 
hitherto has been slow and delayed. It will be the 
work of years to attain to a satisfactory system, but 
every patriot must rejoice that something better lies 
in store for the children of the highlands. Hope de- 
ferred has made the heart sick; but now a better day 



PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM 99 

is dawning. It may be added that in the public 
schools of the mountains the reading of the Bible will 
be welcomed. The people want it. 

The other element in the solving of the problem 
of the Appalachians is the multiplying of the uplift 

agencies of the churches and of 
By Miiltiplying of ^^^ ^^^^^ philanthropic organiza- 
Uplift Agencies . ,^ ^ t, ^ 1 • .u- 

tions. Now, what share m this 

great work the Presbyterian Church is to have is a 

matter that concerns all those who love the old Kirk. 

Is there any special phase of the work for which 

our church has special equipment and adaptation? 

What is the special mission of 
What Is the present-day Presbyterianism in the 

p, , « Appalachians ? We may well take 

a little time to blaze out our course 
over the mountains. It is a happy fact that we have 
but to follow the course of the Home Board as it has 
followed the leadings of Providence during the past 
quarter of a century to find a safe trail already blazed 
out very distinctly over these mountains of the South. 
In general, the mission of present-day Presbyter- 
ianism in the Appalachians is, so far as in it lies, to 

discharge here as elsewhere, the 
To Preach to ^^^ ^1^^^ Christ's world-wide com- 

Every Creature . , . -^ i. i. j 

mission lays upon its heart and 

puts into its hands. The apologies that the Church 
owes are to God for not more promptly carrying its 
share of the Gospel message to the mountains, and 
are not to any men or denomination of men for now 
carrying it there. 



100 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The present duty of Presbyterianism is also to dis- 
charge the debt that it owes its brethren in the Ap- 
palachians. It owes a duty to 
To Discharge brother Americans "beleaguered 

Debt to Brethren , xt . • ^i . • r . 

by Nature in the mountain fast- 
nesses" ; for ours is a national church, with a duty to 
perform to all sections of the land. It owes a duty 
to the descendants of the Scotch-Irishmen; for, 
though not all Presbyterians are Scotch-Irish, most 
Scotch-Irish were originally and even yet the major- 
ity are, by principle or prejudice or tradition, Presby- 
terians ; and Presbyterianism exercises but common 
sense in recognizing that fact. It certainly owes a 
peculiar duty to the descendants of a Presbyterian 
ancestry, to us the proudest lineage on earth. "Blood 
is thicker than water." The Presbyterians of these 
halcyon days of Presbyterian strength and achieve- 
ment should do what their hard-pressed fathers 
longed to do, but were prevented by their providential 
limitations from being able to do. 

The Presbyterian Church is the broadest and most 

tolerant in Christendom. It would not re-enter the 

mountains with any spirit of de- 

To Help Other nominational zeal or with any 

Denominations , r i • .• r .1 .1 

word of depreciation of the other 

churches of the Appalachians. Besides being un- 
christlike, it would be exceedingly out of keep- 
ing with the proprieties of the case for us to criticize 
the brethren that have "tarried by the stuff." 

Rather do we turn with deep gratitude to the faith- 
ful servants of Christ, of whatever name, who have 



PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM loi 

cared for the religious interests of the Appalachians 
in spite of difficulties that have tried men's souls. It 
is the duty of present-day Presbyterianism to run to 
the aid of our hard-pressed brethren of other denomi- 
nations and contribute to the common cause that 
which will make their work far more effective and 
satisfactory, while at the same time it introduces a 
fresh body of workers into a region where the force 
now employed is on every hand confessed to be piti- 
fully inadequate. 

The time-honored means of preaching and teach- 
ing the word by evangelism and school are of course 
necessary in the mountains, as 
To Employ, in elsewhere. Indeed they are more 

J?^x*t! Y^^^^ effective there than in most parts 

Methods , ^ rp. , . •,• r 

of our country. The holdmg of 

tent meetings has been of service in gathering together 
new congregations for organization into churches ; and 
by the means of such meetings the efficient missionar- 
ies of our Sabbath-school Board have organized and 
fostered many Sabbath-schools, often in regions where 
there had never been such schools. For the organiza- 
tion of churches, no more speedy or efficacious means 
can be employed than are those put into practice by 
the heroic and energetic missionaries of the Sabbath- 
school Board. And here valuable assistance is also 
rendered the other denominations, who oftentimes are 
greatly benefited by the services given by our Sab- 
bath-school missionaries. This phase of Christian 
work might well be indefinitely increased in view of 



102 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

the providential favor that has been manifested to it. 

The organization of a Presbyterian church in the 
mountains, hov^ever, should mean more than the or- 
ganization of a nucleus of ill-indoctrinated or un- 
trained church members to be ministered to once or 
twice a month. It should rather create a center where 
earnest and all-the-year-round efforts should be made 
by every method known to the wise winner of souls 
to render it a city set on a hill, a light set on a stand. 

No less than in other communities does the pastor 
here need to be a shepherd, safefolding his flock from 
grievous wolves. Here no less than elsewhere is the 
Bible- reader and catechist or community worker jus- 
tified by the results of her work. A permanent, shin- 
ing Presbyterian church will be one of the greatest 
contributions to a mountain county that our zealous 
Church can make; and the benefit rendered will be 
many fold greater than can be computed merely in 
terms of advantage to the mother Church that estab- 
lished it. 

The Presbyterian Church, however, has reached a 

practical consensus of opinion as to what is its chief 

mission in the southern mountains. 

?^*;/^f ^P^^y^ That mission is to educate, to pro- 
to Educate . , ^, . . , . <. , 

vide Christian education for the 

young people who are to be the future leaders of the 
mountains. This is, of course, recognized as an ex- 
ceptional case. 

Usually the Church looks upon itself as an evan- 
gelizing agency. But in the Appalachians it recog- 




a 

o 



a 

> 

O 



>, 

a 



4:3 



G 

o 



PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM 103 

nizes the fact that here the most successful way to 
contribute to the coming of the glad day when the 
mountains will be fully evangelized is to educate the 
young people of the mountains. What hope of build- 
ing up good Presbyterianism or good Christianity of 
any type if a large proportion of the people cannot 
read, or search the Scriptures that testify of Christ? 
What hope of founding a substantial work so long as 
educated leaders with a desire for improvement and 
progress are lacking? It is evident that the Appa- 
lachian worker must lay broad and deep the founda- 
tion of education and intelligence before he can erect 
a permanent Christian church that shall largely im- 
prove the people for whose good it is consecrated. 

When this Presbyterian policy was at first in 
process of formulation, some of our people were un- 
easy lest the Church might pervert 
Supplementing j^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^- ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ 

State Education . 1 7 1 n . 1 

state IS supposed to do. But such 

doubters have now come to see, first, that in this re- 
spect the southern mountaineers are an exceptional 
population, and need an exceptional treatment; sec- 
ondly, that the speediest way to revolutionize the 
region they inhabit is to give a large body of the 
young people such a thorough Christian education and 
religious training as will render them the great evan- 
gelizing and elevating force of the future; thirdly, 
that the states involved are not yet giving the rural 
districts of even the ''flatwoods" at all adequate 
schools; and fourthly, that they can never give the 
Christian education and religious training so abso- 



104 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

lutely indispensable to the new mountains that all 
Christian patriots wish to see. 

The chief bane of the mountains is the absence of 
education and of Christian education at that; and the 

remedy for the evils that exist, so 
Education the ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ -^ ^ remedy, is to be 

Open Sesame . , . ,. , , "^ ' . . 

found m enlightened Christian 

education. This fact is keenly appreciated by the dis- 
cerning ones in the mountains, and they eagerly long 
for the wondrous panacea for their ills. The broad- 
minded ones will welcome and encourage and aid all 
efforts made by any church to contribute what it may 
to the education of the mountains. 

The people of the Appalachians will hear their own 
sons as they speak of needed advance and improve- 
ments; but they will not listen to 
liiQUcate strangers. They are too proud- 

spirited to do so. Education, then, 
is the best means for reaching comprehensively and 
collectively our brothers of the mountains. The 
schools will create the new generation that, as Grady 
said of the New South, will see "their mountains 
showering down the music of bells, as their slow- 
moving flocks and herds go forth from their folds ; 
their rulers honest and their people loving, and their 
homes happy, and their hearthstones bright, and their 
conscience clear." They will mold public opinion and 
change time immemorial conservatism, and introduce 
the best and most wholesome gifts that the modern 
world can put into church and home and heart. 



PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM 105 

This Christian education must be of the most wide- 

visioned kind. It should bring to the service of the 

mountains the most modern, sci- 

wlde-vSf -''fi'^' f-t'-'' -d helpful 
phases and methods of twentieth- 
century education, and yet hallow it all with the hope- 
ful and happy spirit of that godliness that "is profit- 
able unto all things, having promise of the hfe that 
now is, and of that which is to come." Preachers 
and teachers and community workers, the three forces 
enlisted in the Christian education of the people, will 
contribute by all the means within their power to the 
enlightenment of the future leaders of the people. It 
will teach the care and preservation of the health of 
that body that is the temple of the Holy Spirit. In 
connection with the sanctification of the Hfe, sanita- 
tion of the home will be indoctrinated into the people, 
so that typhoid, tuberculosis, and the other scourges 
of the hills may be driven into permanent exile, and 
their armies of victims be saved to the country. The 
teachings of science as to the influence of alcohol and 
narcotics upon health and Hfe will affect the young 
mountaineers as they affect many young lowlanders, 
and will rapidly strengthen the armies battling against 
intemperance and degeneracy. This Christian educa- 
tion will interest itself in boyhood and girlhood, and 
will busy itself in providing wholesome play and 
sports and recreation in order to break up the monot- 
ony of the mountains and to brighten the rather som- 
ber character of mountain childhood and youth. It 
will encourage whatever will foster the ability of the 



io6 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

farmers to earn a comfortable living from the soil — 
to substitute modern and scientific methods of agri- 
culture for those that have proved themselves pitifully 
deficient or inadequate. It will strive to make a 
worthy, attractive, and homelike home out of every 
cabin in the hills. It will strive by day to accomplish 
these results, and, where feasible, it will strive even 
by night, for has it not the happy results of the 
Rowan County, Kentucky, "Moonlight Schools" to 
encourage it? And it will do all these things and 
whatever else is in its power in order that the bless- 
ings of the best Christian civilization may be shared 
by all our brothers and sisters of the mountains; and 
that, as it thus prepares the way of the Lord and 
makes straight a highway for our God, the glory of 
the Lord may be revealed, and all flesh may see it 
together. 

Such Christian education best pays the debt we owe 

to the churches that have been left comparatively 

alone in the mountains. Their best 

i. ^rijt^^ ^1 ^ workers and many of their minis- 
to Other Churches ^ .„ . ^^ . ^^ .. 

ters will receive the benefits of the 

Presbyterian schools and centers. And as we gladly 

train their workers for the common service of our 

Lord and his mountain vineyard, there will disappear 

from men's hearts the fear that we are merely a 

proselyting agency, seeking our own advancement in 

the way of territorial expansion or numerical growth. 

The mere fact that for various reasons some local 

leaders may not appreciate the educational invasion, 

and that others may be found even to antagonize it, 



PRESENT-DAY PRESBYTERIANISM 107 

will not prevent the service rendered from being a 
real and far-reaching one. 

The statesmanlike leaders of the various denomina- 
tions represented in the mountain work recognize the 
magnitude of the task before the united church of 
Christ, and both heartily welcome the contribution 
that our Church is making toward the performance 
of the task, and generously speak in handsomest terms 
in recognition of the character and extent of that con- 
tribution. The first Interdenominational Conference 
of Mountain Workers was held in Atlanta in April, 
1 91 3, and was marked by the most cordial and fra- 
ternal unanimity among the representatives of the 
various churches, and by evidences, on the part of all, 
of enthusiastic and hopeful devotion to the cause of 
the mountain people. 

Another happy result of the carrying out of this 

mission of present-day Presbyterianism has already 

been greatly to stimulate other de- 

And Stimulate to nominations on the field and away 

Similar Work . , ^ , . ... nr 

from the field to similar eflForts to 

afford the Appalachian youth the Christian training 
that they so much desire. This is an indirect result 
of Presbyterian efforts, but one that is already joy- 
fully witnessed and should still be hopefully looked 
for by the Church ; for thus Christian education is ex- 
tended to the rising generation in the mountains, and 
the common cause of the Lord of the mountains is 
conserved. 

What matters it if credit be not always given to the 
real cause, and even ingratitude sometimes greet the 



io8 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

best sacrifices the Board and its workers can make? 

Jesus, our Master, was kind, for love's sake, to the 

unthankful. The great heart of 

M^^ "^T^^lit *^^ mountain people will beat 

gratefully, and the future will 
cheerfully acknowledge the debt it owes to the old 
Church of their fathers. The statistics of the good 
done by the Church will be accurately kept in heaven, 
even if most of it does not find tabulation in the 
"Minutes of the General Assembly." 



CHAPTER X 

The Day-schools and Smaller Community Cen- 
ters 

The entire Presbyterian Church should acquaint it- 
self with the magnitude of the service rendered the 
southern highlands by its accred- 
A Notable Uplift -^^^^ agents, who have by heroic 
bystem ^^^ herculean labors built up and 

carried forward an Appalachian uplift system that 
has been the pride of the mountains, and that ought 
to be the pride of the Church. The colleges in the 
Appalachians, most of them, were founded by the 
pioneers, and are venerable in age and service; but 
almost all the rest of the schools and community cen- 
ters have been organized and established within the 
past quarter of a century. 

The Board of Home Missions and its officers have 
been unswerving in their devotion to the service of 
the mountaineers. The successive 
And Notable synodical superintendents and the 

Builders Thereof superintendents of the work have 
counted no labor too arduous for them, and have even 
zealously assumed personal obligations, and raised 
special funds to continue or to advance the work dear 
to their hearts. The rank and file of the mountain 

109 



no THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

workers, a consecrated band of ministers, teachers, 
Sabbath-school missionaries, and community workers, 
have toiled and moiled, planned and executed, strug- 
gled and triumphed in the cause that led them often 
far from home, but always near to Nature's heart 
and humanity's heart and the great heart of God. 
No wonder that a cause championed by brave souls 
should have prospered bravely even beyond human ex- 
pectation. 

If we leave out of account the colleges, which are 

not connected with the operations of the Home Board, 

. it will be seen that our Church has 

rplift extern ^':°'7^'^ ^°' *^ Appalachians a 

triple system of uplift influences or 

forces : ( i ) Day-schools and community centers ; 

(2) boarding-schools and large community centers; 

(3) normal schools. A few years ago the deplorable 
dearth of school facilities in the remote mountain dis- 
tricts led the Woman's Board to establish large num- 
bers of primary or day-schools in the most destitute 
districts. These establishments served the double pur- 
pose of schools and community centers. So remark- 
ably successful were these schools in awakening the 
communities in which they were located and in arous- 
ing public opinion in favor of education, that many of 
these communities have found themselves able with the 
help of the larger appropriations now being made for 
the support of the public-school system by the states of 
the southern mountains, to assume for themselves the 
support of the schools within their borders. In such 
cases the Woman's Board has gladly closed its schools, 



DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER CENTERS iii 

thankful that the crutch it had loaned is now no longer 
needed. In some cases, where the need of continued 
occupation was not imperative, the workers have been 
entirely withdrawn; but in other cases, where there 
was still sore need of the help the Church could ren- 
der, the workers have continued to serve the people, 
transferring their entire energies to the many lines 
of general and religious community uplift for which, 
in the former conditions, there had not been sufficient 
time, and by means of which they could more rapidly 
and effectively contribute to the metamorphosis of 
the mountain. In some stations the public school is 
still so entirely inadequate for the needs of the chil- 
dren that it has been deemed necessary to continue the 
Board's school. The system of uplift service is, then, 
in process of adjustment. Meanwhile, however, it 
may be said that every day-school is a community 
center; and every community center is, in its essence, 
a school of some sort. But now these day-schools 
and community centers call for our more particular 
attention. 

A certain mountain community has practically no 

public school and has never had an adequate one. 

And the children live on and ex- 

I?^G^^^*^^~~ ^^^' ^^^ ^^ "^^ develop. Tidings 

come by some mysterious Appa- 
lachian wireless telegraphy, announcing that the peo- 
ple of T'other Mountain or somewhere beyond the bar- 
riers have had their children taught by some women 
that came there to live; and the tidings report the 
beneficial effect the instruction has had in "smarten- 



112 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

ing up" the children. And chimney-corner councils 
are held, and meditative pipes are smoked; and so 
one day the cause of the children sends out an em- 
bassy to beg for a school for Daddy's Mountain, too. 
And the good mission teachers of T'other Mountain 
are touched by the awkward but eloquent plea for the 
unknown children, and they write a letter. 

In the course of time, a man with a mule reaches 
the mountain. Both the man and the mule have an 
interrogative air about them. Did circuit-riders ever 
reach that wilderness, the man might be a circuit- 
rider. But, in fact, he is a Presbyterian sky-pilot. 
He investigates the needs of the field; and the peo- 
ple readily promise to give some land, and perhaps to 
build a temporary cabin home and a cabin school- 
house. Then the mule and the man pick their slip- 
pery way down the rocky trail and disappear. ''Out 
in the flatwoods" things happen — Presbyterian system 
makes them happen — until, in the fulness of time, the 
epochal event takes place: two community workers 
reach the spruce-pine cabins and begin to live for the 
rising generation of Daddy's Mountain. "God made 
two great lights. And God saw that it was good. 
And the evening and the morning were the fourth 
day." 

There are now on Daddy's Mountain all the elements 
that are needed for such a renaissance as the old dead 
mass has long needed. The ad- 
Conditions of the ^^^^ Qf tj^g miners, or even of the 

Renaissance ... j u- ji 

sawmill man and his godless 

''hands," has sometimes transformed a mountain glen 



DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER CENTERS 113 

into an amphitheater of revelry by the introduction 
of wild recklessness and the vices of the valley. But 
the coming of the teachers means the regeneration of 
the community. 

Everything that is best in our civilization centers 
about the Christian home. The teachers ere long 

-I . ■««- 1 1 -r^ have a simple but attractive cot- 

1. A Model Home . t ^r , , - •. e 

tage home that becomes, m its fur- 
nishings, its comfort, its neatness, and its genuine 
homelikeness, an ideal and a model for the people that 
come from far and near to see it for themselves. 

These are the days of demonstration farms, and 
demonstration canneries, and demonstration road- 
making; but here is something higher yet, even a 
demonstration home. And slowly but surely the dem- 
onstration convinces, and the cabins, especially those 
of the younger folk, begin to take on some of the 
features of the teachers' home, now the norm of all 
homes to the people of the neighborhood. And pur- 
pose number one of the establishment begins to be 
realized. 

The consecrated lives in the cottage, however, are 
the principal agents in the renaissance of Daddy's 

o rrn TTT 1 Mountain. The spiritual forces of 

2. The Workers ^u ^' .11 11 

these lives are the heavenly dy- 
namics that God employs in the vitalizing of dead 
lives and the quickening of inert purposes. The most 
observant eyes on earth surely are those that day 
after day, with X-ray penetrativeness, observe these 
teachers. And when those eyes see in the heart of 
the teachers unselfishness and genuineness and Christ- 



114 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

likeness, they brighten with hope and emulation. Of 
none is it true more completely or in more senses 
than of these teachers, that they do not ''live unto 
themselves"; they could not do so if they would, and 
they would not do so if they could, since it was For 
this cause came they into the mountains — that they 
should there bear witness to the truth. 

Though the strongest influence these workers ex- 
ert is the silent influence of their daily lives, their 
words have a power such as in less 
z: "iT^y^?? unsophisticated communities would 

be utterly inconceivable. They be- 
come the oracles of the children and, to a consider- 
able extent, the authority of the adults. They open 
the book world — and that is, after all, the entire world 
— to the delighted eyes of their pupils. To have a 
tabula rasa put into their hands for such inscriptions 
as they may choose to write makes their work a seri- 
ous responsibility, but also awakens an enthusiasm 
that nerves them in their isolation. Their proteges 
have little to distract their attention, and make most 
cheering progress. 

Besides maintaining their home as an everyday ob- 
ject-lesson in housekeeping and home-making, the 

community workers attempt to 
4. Training in ^^^^^ ^^^ -^^ ^^^ g^ £^j. ^5 ^j^ 

Home-makingf . "=*, . - .,•' 

can reach them, the women of the 

community, in the mysteries that out in the wide, wide 

world go under the labels of domestic science and 

home economics. And right eager are the maidens 

of the hills to learn the strange but simple and ex- 




o 






CO 



DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER CENTERS 115 

perimental lore regarding food-stuffs and food-values, 
cookery and sanitation, and dress-cutting and dress- 
making, that the workers lay before them. It is, how- 
ever, through the Mother's Meeting that adult and 
maternal hearts are aroused and reached. A moun- 
tain mother will respond, as any mother will, to what- 
ever will benefit her child. And when the workers 
follow up their teaching by house-to-house visitation, 
they add force to their teaching by their kindly pres- 
ence and sympathy in the home. Zenana work may 
be more unique, but it can hardly be more useful 
than this mountain Christian Settlement Work. 

Many of the workers give simple instruction along 
practical industrial lines. The extensive exhibits 

sometimes collected at the annual 
5. Industrial Mountain Workers' Conference 

and Bible School at Maryville Col- 
lege, surprise visitors with their evidence of the un- 
expected extent to which the busy mountain workers 
have been able to give attention to training along in- 
dustrial lines, from the kindergarten stage and up- 
ward. The Home Board's pamphlet on "The Allan- 
stand Cottage Industries" is a revelation as to how 
the supposedly obsolete spinning wheel and loom can 
be made to give forth even in the twentieth century 
both beauty and utility. Mountain boys, too, take 
kindly to the training in the making of box furniture, 
mission furniture, and the hke. 

Recognizing the truth that is being emphasized by 
lecturers on the Country Life Movement, that a man 



ii6 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

must be able to make a comfortable living before he 
can be expected to be a very useful citizen, the work- 
ers in our community centers are 

Sr'^ Y?^^^^^^ devotine^ more attention than ever 

Welfare , ,. -.u ^.u 

Campaigns *^ co-operatmg with those govern- 

mental and private agencies that 
are attempting to bring to the rural population, even to 
their very doors, the valuable suggestions and helps as 
to their problems and opportunities that specialists are 
preparing for their use. These new friends of the 
mountaineers — for all real mountaineers are rural folk 
— bring hope in their every accent, for they assure our 
highland people that with proper methods of agricul- 
ture and horticulture, most sections of the mountains 
can be rendered much more productive than they are 
at present. Miss Goodrich tells of girls' tomato clubs 
started last year under the charge of one of the 
workers in the Laurel region who has been appointed 
collaborator in Madison County, North Carolina, by 
the United States Department of Agriculture. With 
the assistance of this Department, three "Farmers' 
Days" were held in the Laurel field, with addresses 
from specialists on practical farm matters. During 
the current year fifteen community centers, including 
the Laurel and Marshall fields, in French Broad Pres- 
bytery, are experiment ground for the development 
of community work, under the direction of the Home 
Board. 

The Presbyterian Church and its mountain workers 
believe that the entrance of God's words giveth light; 



DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER CENTERS 117 

and so they make every center pre-eminently a Bible 
school. Throughout the years they direct and develop 
the study of the Book of books. 
^ The memories and hearts of the 
children are being enriched with the truth of God, and 
the minds of even the aged are being brightened by 
the glory that ''gilds the sacred page." So central a 
place does the Bible hold in this mountain v^ork that 
very appropriately the name first given to community 
workers was "Bible-readers." Dr. Calvin A. Duncan 
gives the following outline picture of the methods 
employed by these Bible-readers : 

"The women employed as Bible-readers establish a 
model home where Christ is first in all things. The 
house is inexpensive, yet neat and comfortable. It is 
kept clean within and without. Great care is taken 
to comply with all sanitary conditions. Choice flow- 
ers bloom in the yard, and the premises are made as 
attractive as possible. Mothers' meetings for prayer 
and Bible study, sewing of garments and helpful con- 
versation, are held in this home. Then the homes of 
the people are visited, the sick and dying are minis- 
tered to, and words of comfort are spoken to the be- 
reaved. In some instances medicines are supplied and 
administered. The Sabbaths are full of work, these 
women often superintending the Sabbath-school, lead- 
ing the singing, and doing most of the teaching. Then 
there is the young people's meeting and the prayer- 
meeting work. It seems to me that if our Saviour 
were here on earth he would be doing just such work 
as these good women are doing." 



ii8 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

Running through all these various modes of serv- 
ice and dignifying and irradiating them all is the 
dominant and supreme purpose on 
8. Moral and ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ workers to establish 

Religious Training ^, , . , t n a - ^u 

the kmgdom of God in the com- 
munity. They, like Micah, have an all-controlling 
ambition that the mountain of the Lord's house shall 
be established in the top of the mountains and that 
it shall be exalted above the hills, and that people 
shall flow unto it. And to this end they endeavor to 
make everything contribute to the alignment and train- 
ing of the people in lives of clean morals and pure 
religion. Then, too, once or twice a month the near- 
est Presbyterian minister comes and holds services 
in the schoolhouse, with the mountainside gathered 
about him. Occasionally, too, the Sabbath-school mis- 
sionary visits Daddy's Mountain, and reinforces with 
all his might the Sabbath-school of the mission set- 
tlement. Thus do all branches of the work unite in 
one common flood of spiritual blessing for the neigh- 
borhood and the school. And thus is ushered in the 
new generation on the old mountain. 

The results of a day-school appear with almost 
miraculous swiftness. The influence of the school ap- 
pears first of all in the children. 
Results: 1. Com- ^^^ j^ jg ^^^ ^ ^^^^jl ^^^ entire 

munity Aroused . . 

community reveals a new move- 
ment and life and ambition. The women "red up" 
the cabins, and the men begin to plan for something 
new on the farm. Windows appear in the cabin 
homes. Morals tone up, and temperance men grow 



DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER CENTERS 119 

aggressive. The Sabbath becomes a marked day, and 
every day has sung into it the new songs of hope and 
activity. The people have heard the sound of a gong 
in the tops of the trees, and have bestirred them- 
selves. 

Of course the work must encounter opposition and 
misunderstandings. There are prejudices of conserva- 
tism that would not be disturbed, 

Hef e^d^^^^^^ and of inertia that would not 

move, and of pride that is hurt. 
But the difficulties are not greater than are those 
that must be met in any mission work. Much of 
this opposition is honest and can be overcome; such 
part of it as is selfish must be endured in the strength 
that God gives. But where the children go the hearts 
of the parents follow, even if at a distance; and so 
the older people, too, are influenced by the workers, 
who instruct them principally by proxy. And they 
are helped so far as adults fixed in their ways can be 
helped. And many appreciate the workers as they 
deserve to be appreciated, namely, whole-heartedly. 

However, the principal effect of the community 

centers, as was to be expected and desired, is found 

to be in the transforming of the 

3. Young People ^^^ generation, the hope of the 

Transformed r . a r r 1 j 

future. A few years of awakened 

community life put the light of intelligence flashing in 
their eyes, irradiating their minds, and illumining 
their hearts ; for God's will has been done, and there 
is light! Instead of aimlessness, a definite mission is 
theirs ! Life has possibilities and opportunities for 



120 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

them. And, while all step up to higher thoughts and 
deeds than were their fathers', some look out beyond 
the tree tops and mountain ridges toward a higher 
school of which they have heard. And now and then, 
by the election of God and God's children, one of 
them is led off of Daddy's Mountain, out to that 
higher school to prepare for — God knows what. 

In the course of the years, the people, in many 
cases, call for a church organization; and so the far- 
off presbytery is communicated 
4. Usually Church ^j^j^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^3-^.^ ^f ^^^ 1^ 

Established . ^ , , . , 1 • T 1 

IS granted and the church is found- 
ed. And now to the community center and the school- 
house there is added a church house, to prepare them 
the more fully for that home of the soul of which 
the young people have learned so much since the 
workers came to Daddy's Mountain. 

And all this change has taken place in a few short 
years; for in the Appalachians men do not have to 
wait, in such work as this, so very many days for the 
finding of the bread they have cast upon the waters. 
The harvest is speedy. 

A minister of another denomination has written 

the following tribute to the mountain workers of our 

church : **No one who has ob- 

VisitS^^^ °^ ^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ progress of the schools 
established by the Presbyterian 
Church in the U. S. A. can fail to be impressed with 
the wonderful transformation they are working. I 
remember having sent an appointment to preach at a 
schoolhouse in a community that I had never before 



DAY-SCHOOLS AND SMALLER CENTERS 121 

visited. It was in a remote country district, and I 
expected to find a rude, ill-favored people, rough in 
voice, manners and dress, such as I had frequently 
met in this section before. Arriving at the place a 
few minutes before the hour for preaching, I thought 
I was to have no congregation, because I had been 
accustomed to see the people stand in crowds around 
the church door and chew tobacco and crack rude 
jokes until the preliminary services were over and the 
minister was ready to commence the sermon. 

"On this occasion no one was to be seen, but as I 
dismounted a handsome, bright-eyed youth came out 
and introduced himself with an easy grace unusual in 
one reared in a remote country home. I remarked to 
him that I supposed my congregation would be small, 
judging from the present outlook. He informed me, 
however, that the house was full. 

"I entered the building and to my astonishment 
faced as neatly dressed and intelligent an audience as 
you usually see. I was astonished when I heard them 
sing, and I could hardly preach for wondering at the 
evidences of refinement, intelligence, and good taste 
before me. When the service was over, three or 
four bright, intelligent ladies came forward, intro- 
duced themselves, and told me they were conducting 
a school there under the auspices of the Presbyterian 
Church. The appearance of the population had been 
transformed in a few years by this school. 

'Tf Christian philanthropists all over the country 
could really understand the fruitful field that lies be- 
fore them in this section, they would not stop until a 



122 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

model home and a model school were maintained in 
every community. Some denominations have spent 
all their energy and their money in this section in 
evangelistic work. Evangelistic work is well, but it 
is of little use to get people converted unless you put 
into operation some means by which to develop them 
in piety, and instruct them in the practical duties of 
Christian life." 

The first day-school in the South under the Wom- 
an's Board of Home Missions was established in 1879, 
. . at Whitehall, North Carolina. In 

May, 1913, the superintendent of 
school work reported mountain schools and com- 
munity centers of all kinds under the Woman's 
Board's care as being 48; teachers and community 
workers, 132; boarding pupils, 1,175; day pupils, 960; 
industrial pupils, 252; total pupils, 2,387; Sabbath- 
school scholars, 5,019; members of young people's so- 
cieties, 1,230; number of conversions, 321. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Boarding-Schools and Larger Community 

Centers 

The establishment of day-schools and smaller com- 
munity centers in the remoter rural districts is justi- 
fied by the spirit of Christianity, which is especially 
interested in the individual and in the unfortunate. 
And God has set his seal of approval upon this form 
of his church's activity. 

Christian statesmanship, however, calls also for the 

occupation of whatever centers of population may 

exist. Life proceeds from the 

The Strategic ^iQ^iTt to the extremities. Thus the 

County Seat 1111 j j 

church has always reasoned, and 

so has occupied the strategic points that command 
other points. The pioneers established their acade- 
mies, if in the country — there was little but country 
in their day — at any rate in the most thickly settled 
parts of the frontier. The mountain county seat is 
sometimes only a village, but is always the largest 
place within the county limits. From it roads radiate 
to all the civil districts of the county. Its character 
affects the entire county. Capture for education and 
morality the people within sight of the court-house, 
and the county itself will ere long also capitulate. 

123 



124 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

These facts led our mountain synods and pres- 
byteries and their synodical superintendents — espe- 
cially those men of apostolic la- 
Presbyterial ^ ^^^ j^^^ ^^^ Donald Mc- 

Academies t^ i , -r^ t^ r 

Donald, D.D., former supermtend- 

ent for Kentucky, and the Rev. Calvin A. Duncan, 
D.D., former superintendent for Tennessee — to en- 
deavor to locate in the county seat of each mountain 
county destitute of such a school a Presbyterian acad- 
emy, either under presbyterial control or under the 
control of the Board of Home Missions. In 1887 
the Synod of Tennessee had nine such academies un- 
der the care of its presbyteries. The local friends, 
aided to some extent from abroad, provided the neces- 
sary buildings; while the modest sums required for 
current expenses were secured from tuition, dona- 
tions, the Board of Aid for Colleges and Academies, 
self-denial — and always faith. 

In 1905 there were within the limits of the Appa- 
lachians and of the Synods of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee nineteen academies and 
Academies and boarding-schools, all Presbyterian, 
though not all of them connected 
with the Board of Home Missions. There were also 
several listed by the Synod of Tennessee as "day- 
schools" that had done and were doing academic 
work; they were Grassy Cove, Huntsville, Sneed- 
ville, Elizabethton (Harold McCormick School), 
Flag Pond, Erwin (John Dwight School), and Mar- 
shall. So there were twenty-six schools, aside from 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 125 

the preparatory departments of the colleges, where an 
academic education could be secured. 

As the Presbyterian patriot a few years ago read 
the distressing statistics that the Southern Education 
Board had collected regarding 
Worthy of the these mountain counties and as he 
Kirk of Knox ^^^^^ ^^^^ Board's clarion call to 

patriotic action in behalf of these counties, he experi- 
enced a sense of solid satisfaction in the knowledge 
that one division of the old Kirk that boasted Knox 
and his school system had made this substantial and 
beneficent contribution to the educational interests of 
nearly thirty counties of the Scotch highlands of 
America. As men count polls, the mountain synods 
connected with the Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church in the U. S. A. are but a feeble folk; but 
nevertheless they have large love for the mountains, 
and they had behind them a mighty Church and a 
Home Board that also feels "the call of the blood." 

The purpose sought in the establishment of the 
schools of high grade was the same as in the case of 
the day-schools and community 
Policy and centers — to train Christians for 

purpose liie's opportunities. The policy 

was to make each academy and boarding-school a 
center of influence in all the county or region from 
which the students gather; to train new envoys of 
intelligence and send them out into many neighbor- 
hoods to pass the truth and training on to their 
friends; and thus to exemplify the cheering truth of 
mathematics — that ten times one is ten. 



126 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The very useful careers of several of these acad- 
emies and boarding-schools were cut short as the 
result of the awaking of interest in 
P , , the public schools, an awaking that 

these church schools themselves 
had done a great deal to bring about. The states of 
the southern Appalachians have recently enacted leg- 
islation providing for the establishment of county 
high schools, and so it has been deemed best by the 
Woman's Board in many cases to terminate the regu- 
lar high-school work of our schools, and to seek other 
methods of serving the mountains. But the schools 
have already been in existence long enough to have 
rendered invaluable service, and in some cases to have 
wrought a moral and intellectual transformation in 
the counties they served that seems almost miraculous. 
They had performed a most timely and patriotic part 
in the renaissance of the mountains. 

In this period of transition in the public-school sys- 
tem of the Appalachians, some adjustment of the 
work of our church has been made 
Future Senrice necessary. After earnest deliber- 
ation it has been decided: (i) 
that there must still be some boarding-schools main- 
tained in certain strategic centers of the mountain 
region; and (2) that there should everywhere be 
sympathetic cooperation with the civil authorities on 
the part of our church, so that its work may supple- 
ment their educational work by the providing of Bible, 
industrial, and manual training under the care of its 
teachers. This annex will, in general, be warmly wel- 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 127 

corned by the school authorities, and at the same time 
provide our Christian workers the best of oppor- 
tunities for the moral and religious training of the 
young people. It is believed that in this cooperation 
with the pubhc-school authorities, but entire independ- 
ence of them, will be found an economical, workable, 
and most effective mode of helpfulness to the young 
people gathered in the county seats for their high- 
school training. 

The different boarding-schools now operated by our 
Church in the synods of West Virginia, Kentucky, and 
Tennessee have plants varying in 
Twofola ^Qg|. f j.Qm ten thousand to two hun- 

^ ^ dred thousand dollars. The prop- 

erty value of all the schools is given in detail in the 
Appendix. The buildings employed have been con- 
structed with a view to considerations of utility, but 
are generally attractive as well as useful. The chief 
equipment of the schools, however, is, of course, the 
teaching force. The teachers have been carefully 
chosen for their happy blending of scholarship, teach- 
ing ability, genuine character, and Christian devotion. 
They enter upon their work in the fear of God and 
with the love of souls. They uphold high standards 
of scholarship. And in the carrying out of the gen- 
eral policy of the church in the establishment of these 
schools, they spend their days and nights in the en- 
deavor to send back into every part of the mountains 
earnest, scholarly, and efficient young men and young 
women to share with others their acquisitions in edu- 
cation and character. 



128 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The mountain boys need Christian boarding- 
schools; but more yet do the mountain girls, the fu- 
ture mothers of the new moun- 
Girls Need ^^- ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ j^^ ^^^^ ^f jg^. 

Help Most , . i r 1 ^ i-i- 1 

lation and of the Crusoe life has 

told most heavily on the girls and women. They have 
suffered most. "The mountains are a good place for 
men and dogs, but they are hard on women and 
horses." Gallaher sings the praises of the "Mothers 
of the Forest Land," and nevertheless adds the quali- 
fying words : 

"Yet who or lauds or honors them 
Even in their own green home? " 

The district school may lighten their gloom with the 
illumination of the three R's, but it is the boarding- 
school that kindles the light of the outer valley world 
and the inner Christian life. As the girls come in 
contact with devoted and cultured Christian women, 
they are transformed by the education of the heart 
and mind alike. Their longings are satisfied, their 
ideals are elevated, and their ambitions are awakened. 
To many of them the opening up of the new oppor- 
tunities is like the cleaving of the rock in a thirsty 
land. And so it is to all the mountain youth that are 
suffering from a long-time and often insatiable thirst 
for knowledge — the kind that the boy Lincoln had, 
while, outstretched on the puncheon floor of his fa- 
ther's cabin, he pored over his well-thumbed book, 
with the aid of a pine-torch light. 




a 
o 

+-> 



o 
Q 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 129 

Although the purpose of this book makes it un- 
necessary to describe in detail the work done by the 
colleges of the Appalachian sy- 

^i^!t.^^i^^^^l nods, it would be impossible to 

of the Synods 1,1 . , 

overlook them m any such sum- 
mary as we are now making. All the colleges re- 
ferred to have found it necessary, as indeed, have all 
other colleges of the section, in order to serve their 
constituency to the best advantage, to conduct pre- 
paratory departments in connection with their college 
departments. So the Presbyterian Church has had 
in successful operation, in several cases for a century 
past, college annex boarding-schools which have 
trained and sent out many thousands of the young 
people of the Appalachians. The usefulness of these 
institutions cannot be measured by their lists of 
alumni, worthy as those lists are. The influence of 
their undergraduates has been far greater than that 
even of their graduates. Davis and Elkins (estab- 
lished in 1904) in West Virginia, and Pikeville 
(1909) in Kentucky are the junior members of the 
octette. Centre College of Central University and 
the Kentucky College for Women, formerly called 
Caldwell College, are located in the Blue Grass 
region of Kentucky, and Cumberland University is lo- 
cated in the Central Basin of Tennessee, but all three 
of these historic institutions have had many students 
from the hills. The East Tennessee trio of colleges, 
Washington, Tusculum, and Maryville, were, as stated 
in a former chapter, established by the Scotch-Irish 
pioneers to educate the young people of "the fron- 



130 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

tier" and ''the Southwest," and incalculable has been 
their service. The Presbyterian Church may well be 
proud of what its colleges in the three synods of the 
southern mountains have accomplished for the region 
they have served. 

Let us turn now to the regular boarding-schools 
that represent our church in the three synods. In 
Lawson, Raleigh County, West 
Stockdale Virginia, stands one of the young- 

est of these schools, the Pattie C. 
Stockdale Memorial Home Industrial School. The 
attractive main building accommodates forty girls. 
The manse, occupied by the pastor who serves the 
large field from Clear Creek to Jarrold's Valley, is 
built on the school grounds, as is also the neat chapel- 
schoolhouse. The Stockdale Memorial is the only 
boarding-school representing the Woman's Board in 
West Virginia. It lays special emphasis upon domes- 
tic science and industrial training. 

Strategically located on the Big Sandy branch of 
the C. & O. Railroad, in Pike County, the eastern- 
most of the thirty-six mountain 
Pikeville counties of Kentucky, Pikeville 

College deserves handsome treat- 
ment at the hands of the great church that placed it 
there on outpost duty. It was established as an acad- 
emy in 1889, and organized as a college in 1909. It 
has thus far confined itself to junior college work. 
The total valuation of its property is about seventy- 
five thousand dollars. There are three buildings. The 
Derriana dormitory for girls, a forty thousand dollar 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 131 

hall, was presented by Mr. John A. Simpson, an elder 
in the Covington Church. The college is under the 
control of Ebenezer Presbytery, and also under the 
care of the Synod of Kentucky. 

At Buckhorn. in Perry County, Kentucky, on the 
Middle Fork of Kentucky River, at the mouth of 
Squabble Creek, stands Wither- 
Mle T^°'''' spoon College. This very remark- 

able and prosperous school is con- 
ducted by Rev. and Mrs. Harvey S. Murdock and 
ten assistants, and is supported by the Lafayette Ave- 
nue Church of Brooklyn. The eight buildings are 
utilized to the utmost. Hospital clinics are provided 
for the needy mountainside. The Englewood farm is 
tilled by the students. More than three hundred stu- 
dents are enrolled. The additions to the church mem- 
bership at Buckhorn were last year the largest in the 
Synod of Kentucky. 

In 1892 a day-school was begun in Harlan, Ken- 
tucky. In 1896 buildings were erected for an acad- 

,, , ^ , . , emy and for a girls' dormitory. 
Harlan Industrial ^p, n ^ r ^1 

ihe average enrollment of the 

academy for the years 1 901- 191 1 was two hundred and 
forty-six. In 191 1 the academy work was transferred 
to the public school authorities, and the work con- 
ducted by the Woman's Board was changed to that 
of an industrial boarding-school for girls. This school 
has cooperated with the public schools, and supple- 
mented their work. It is hoped that general com- 
munity and extension work will ere long be largely 
developed in this interesting center that has been at 



132 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

once so gratifying and so conspicuous an evidence 
of the transforming influences of Christian education 
in the mountains. The town of Harlan is growing 
rapidly, the school population having risen in three 
years from two hundred and seventy-one to seven 
hundred and fifty-one. An excellent public-school 
building has been erected at a cost of seventeen thou- 
sand dollars. The admirable new church edifice, to 
cost thirteen thousand dollars, now in course of con- 
struction, will itself be educational in its influence. 

About fifteen years ago Presbyterians in Kentucky 
established in Mt. Vernon, Rockcastle County, the 

^ , . , Mt. Vernon Collegiate Institute. 

Langdon Memonal r ^ ^u 4. i. 

^ In 1905 the property was trans- 

ferred to the Brown Memorial Church of Baltimore, 
by whom in turn it was transferred, in 1908, to the 
Woman's Board of Home Missions. This Board, 
largely aided by the Brown Memorial Church, sup- 
ports and directs the school. In honor of Mrs. Lang- 
don, who built the dormitory as a memorial to her 
husband, the school is now called the Langdon 
Memorial Industrial School for Girls and Young 
Women. The county authorities have recently taken 
over the high-school work formerly conducted by the 
Woman's Board; and now the Langdon Memorial, 
under the wise leadership of Miss Rose McCord, has 
adjusted its work to supplement the work of the 
county high school. Many of the high-school girls 
board in the Langdon Memorial, and take Bible, do- 
mestic science, and industrial training under its work- 
ers. Kindergarten and music are also provided by the 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 133 

workers. Both community and extension work have 
been carried on with excellent results. It is believed 
that much more effective uplift service can be ren- 
dered by our workers under the new arrangements 
than when the entire high school was in their charge. 
Mossop Memorial Industrial Boarding-school for 
Girls, Huntsville, Tennessee, is the successor of 

. , Huntsville Academy, which was es- 
Mossop Memorial ,11-111 t^- \ n u ^ 

^ tablished by Kmgston Presbytery 

in 1885, and which continued its beneficent work till 
1907, when it was taken over by the public-school au- 
thorities. At comparatively small outlay an immense 
benefit has been meted out in the education of the 
young people, in the renovation of the public schools, 
and in the establishment and multiplication of Sab- 
bath-schools. One of the leading men of Huntsville, 
after enumerating the many ways in which Scott 
County had made remarkable progress, bore this 
voluntary testimony: ''Your Board is not entitled 
to all the credit for these improvements, but your 
church and school should be given more credit than 
all the other agencies known to me." In 1907 a guar- 
antee of partial support from two generous donors for 
whose parents the new school was named, made it 
possible for the Woman's Board to establish an in- 
dustrial boarding-school in a property presented for 
that purpose by Tennessee women. The property in- 
cludes the dormitory located on twenty acres bor- 
dering the town on the west, and a two-story acad- 
emy building upon one acre in the eastern part of the 
town. It is valued at $9,600. The school is confined 



134 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

to boarding pupils, accommodates thirty, with three 
teachers, and is always full. It is operated upon the 
principle that the surest and quickest way to uplift the 
community is to qualify young women to be compe- 
tent Christian home-makers. Under the superintend- 
ence of a principal and with the efficient coopera- 
tion of Dr. and Mrs. Henry S. Butler, the school has 
from the first been a model one, and happy are those 
accepted as its students. 

On the northeastern edge of the great valley of 
East Tennessee, in Carter County, under the Unakas, 

TT ij -nyr n ^^^ upou the bcautiful Watauga, 

Harold McCor- u .t, u r t^- at 

mick School ^1^^"^ *^^ ^^'^^' of Kmgs Moun- 

tain rendezvoused, is the Harold 
McCormick School of Elizabethton. A few years ago 
this useful academy was transferred by the Wom- 
an's Board to the Home Mission Committee of Hols- 
ton Presbytery, by whom now it has in turn been 
transferred to the control of the Board of Trust of 
Tusculum College. For seven years Rev. W. C. 
Clemens has been its principal, and under his guid- 
ance it has not only given a general education to 
many, but has also prepared a goodly number for 
college. 

Our church has been strongly drawn to the Old 
North State. Mt. Mitchell's lofty summit looks down 

upon eight of our boarding- 
NoIth^StaT^ schools, all of which are within one 

hundred miles of that mountain. 
The fact that annually large numbers of tourists and 
seekers after health from the Northern states visit 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 135 

Asheville and the surrounding country has made this 
region the one best known to the church at large. 
The investments that the church has made here are 
the largest made in the mountain region. 

At the state line, as one goes up the gorge of the 
French Broad River from Tennessee, is Hot Springs 

Ti 1 /I T +'+ + ^^^ ^^^ Dorland Institute. Dr. 
Dorland established the institution 
in 1887 in his old age, and it stands as a pledge of the 
providential approval of his life of devotion to his 
Master. In 1893 the Woman's Board assumed the 
work. The plant has grown to be an excellent one. 
The girls' dormitory stands in the town of Hot 
Springs. It is three stories high and well-built, con- 
taining rooms for sixty girls and the teaching force. 
Two miles away is the Institute farm, "The Willows," 
where is the boys' dormitory with accommodations for 
fifty students. Close to the girls' dormitory stands 
the school-building of eight class-rooms where the 
boys and girls study and recite together; and practice 
cottages, in which the girls in rotation are instructed 
in housekeeping and home-making. This is the only 
secondary coeducational school in the mountains car- 
ried on by the Woman's Board. Incidentally it may 
be added that in its eighteen years' existence it has 
been remarkably successful in establishing Christian 
homes. The social life of the young people is under 
the faculty's close supervision, for they regard it fully 
as much a duty to teach young people right social 
habits as it is to teach arithmetic or history. So 
eager were the young men for the privileges of the 



136 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

Institute, that, before a dormitory was provided for 
them, they occupied a tobacco barn that was lent them 
for use as a dormitory. On 'The Willows'' farm, one 
of the best in Madison County, the young men find 
opportunities for practical farm work; they also 
do the housework. Borland Memorial Church, in the 
town, near the institute buildings, is a church home 
for all students. The average annual enrollment for 
the decade closing in 191 1 was two hundred and 
twenty pupils. For eighteen years Miss Julia E. 
Phillips has been principal, and during that time has 
impressed her character on the institute and upon 
literally thousands that have attended it. 

A special interest attaches to Bell Institute, located 
in a romantic and beautiful mountain setting, in 

.„ „ ., .... the village of Walnut, Madison 

Bell Institute ^ 4. xt ^u r- r r 

County, North Carolma, for it was 

founded and conducted by the former Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church. After the union of this church 
with the Presbyterian Church of the U. S. A., Bell In- 
stitute, in 1908, came under the care of the Woman's 
Board of Home Missions; but there is continued as- 
surance that this school, in the very heart of the 
mountains, is still especially dear to the hearts of the 
founders, for a lively, practical interest in it is mani- 
fested by them at all times. The industrial boarding 
department accommodates fifty girls, and the day- 
school, which is coeducational, has a capacity for an 
equal number. A principal, three teachers, and a 
matron comprise the faculty. Twenty-two pupils 
graduated this year, more than one-half of whom plan 




o 
o 

o 
tn 

t— I 

O 

a 









BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 137 

to continue their work in higher schools. The prop- 
erty consists of a large dormitory building, and a com- 
modious chapel and school building, in an enclosure 
of seven acres of land. The total value of the plant 
is seventeen thousand dollars. 

In Burnsville, the county seat of Yancey County, is 
the Stanley McCormick Academy, fostered during all 

^ .,, . , its history by Mrs. Nettie F. Mc- 

BurnsvilleAcademy^ ■ ^ r. u u u 

'^ Lormick. it has been a presby- 

terial academy, under the care of the presbytery of 
French Broad, but has been transferred to the control 
of Mrs. McCormick. Its excellent buildings and 
equipment are valued at over fifty thousand dollars. 
Under the management of a large and efficient corps 
of teachers, the academy is most worthily justifying 
its right to the enviable vantage ground it occupies. 

Crowning a commanding and beautiful site one mile 

from Concord, in the Piedmont region, out beyond 

Asheville and the mountains, 

Wa Sunderland ^^^ ^^^^^ Sunderland Memorial 

Memonai ^ . . . ^ ,_.,. . . ^ 

bchool IS lulnllmg its beneficent 

mission. It was the outgrowth of the first school es- 
tablished by the Woman's Board in the South, and 
was designed to reach pupils from the farm, the 
mountain, and the cotton mill. It provides a boarding- 
school for sixty-four girls, who are chosen from a 
long waiting list. A large proportion of the students 
are young women too old for the public schools. The 
eight common-school grades are covered in five years, 
and training is given in housekeeping, domestic econ- 
omy, sewing, cooking, agriculture, and gardening. As 



138 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

a result of the strong religious influences all the stu- 
dents are professing Christians. This hive of busy 
bees, too, has had the advantage of continuity of wise 
administration, for Miss Melissa Montgomery has 
been in charge for the past seventeen years. 

At Asheville stand the three schools that form, as 
it were, the apex of the Presbyterian Home Mission 
school system of the Appalachians, 
^^h} ^^ representing the largest invest- 

ment in money and workers and 
effort. As representative of the entire school work 
they will be spoken of in a separate chapter. 

When the course of study has been completed, the 
graduates of these schools go forth to live their fu- 
ture lives and to exert their future 

w ere tne influence. Some are already at 

Graduates Go , . , . .1 . 1 i- 

home, and take up their share of 

the responsibility for continued advance in the com- 
munity that is the home of the school. Others return 
to their homes in the country to improve them, and 
to introduce a new life into the neighborhood. They 
become leaders in public sentiment and public prog- 
ress. They hurry up the evolution of the hill country. 
In some counties almost all the public-school teachers 
are former students of our boarding-schools or acad- 
emies. They also wake up the Sabbath-schools. 

The danger of conservatism is petrifaction. Galdos 
tells of the peasant lad, Celipin Centeno, as setting 
out from the mines of Socartes, with his little budget 
in his hands, in search of the place where he could 
become "a useful man"; and what Galdos says of 



BOARDING-SCHOOLS, LARGER CENTERS 139 

Celipin might be said of many an Appalachian youth 
trained in our schools : "Geology has lost a stone, and 
society has gained a man." Some of the young peo- 
ple push on, with help, through the colleges of the 
synods, and then go out to serve the church at home 
and abroad; the number of such recruits is consid- 
erable, and is increasing. The purpose of the estab- 
lishment of the schools is abundantly justified. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Asheville Schools 

AsHEviLLE is an ideal site for any school, and espe- 
cially for such as are intended to contribute to the 

^, , ^ .. solution of the Appalachian prob- 

Ideal Location . ^. ^ . . 

lem. Picturesque America can 

hardly boast a panorama of more impressive grandeur 
and surpassing beauty than is that presented from 
any eminence in this queen city of the "land of the 
sky." The romantic Swannanoa and the French 
Broad unite their waters near the city and contribute 
the only addition that the lover of natural beauty 
could ask to complete the perfection of this North 
Carolina landscape. Just above this junction of the 
rivers, the estate of Biltmore lies in all that unique 
attractiveness which nature and art have given it. A 
climate that is believed in by the physicians of all the 
states attracts every year tens of thousands of rest- 
seekers and health-seekers to Asheville, to the 
Sapphire country, and to all the mountain region 
within easy access of the capital city of western North 
Carolina. 

In such a noble natural setting the Presbyterian 
Church has located four schools of magnificent 

140 



THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS 141 

achievement and even more splendid promise. The 

money invested in the permanent plants of these 

„. , ^ , , schools amounts to two hundred 

Rich Investment j-.r ^u jjh t.^ 

and sixty-nve thousand dollars ; but 

so economically has the investment been made, and so 

wisely administered, that it is equal in efficiency to 

what twice that amount would be in many places. 

About five hundred and fifty young people were 

gathered in the four schools during the year 1913. 

The plan of the schools prevents any unnecessary 

duplication of work. The very names suggest the 

■n if u /\i-. J. difference in the scope of the in- 
Fourfold Object . . ^, T^ ,^ .1 
stitutions. The Fease Memorial 

House for Little Girls is a school home for girls 
from six to twelve years old, and provides instruction 
in the first four common-school grades. The Home 
Industrial gives a home industrial training to girls 
from the fifth grade to the eighth. The Normal and 
Collegiate Institute affords to girls and young women 
a four years' course of normal and collegiate train- 
ing, and special courses of training in domestic sci- 
ence and domestic arts. The Farm School provides 
for boys and young men instruction in the common- 
school branches, and in industrial training in the shop 
and on the farm. Thus is a wisely coordinated and 
yet differentiated work carried on in four institutions 
with the economy and efficiency of a single institu- 
tion. Let us look at the work of these schools some- 
what in detail, as being typical of the work of the 
other worthy schools that have been merely men- 
tioned in the foregoing chapters. 



142 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

I. The Pease Memorial House 

The Pease Memorial House for Little Girls was 

erected in 1908. Although special preparation to care 

_. , ^ , for little girls in the Home Indus- 

Little People 4. ' i a u ^ £ -it-j u 

^ trial bchool family had never been 

made, the most needy cases could not be refused, and 

there were always some little folk in the family. The 

erection of a building for the care of the little ones 

was, then, not an experiment but an extension. In the 

first edition of this book it was spoken of as ''The 

Annex That Must Come." 

Fifty-five boarders were received the day Pease 
House opened, and during the school terms there has 
not been a vacancy. Forty of the girls are twelve 
years old and under, and of this forty the most are 
from seven to ten years. The girls of Pease House 
compose the practice school of the Normal and Col- 
legiate Institute. 

Fifteen of the older girls do the heavier work of 
the house, but all the children, including the tiny tots 
of five and six years, have some share in the work 
of keeping it tidy. Out of school hours, when not 
playing vigorously out of doors, or quietly with dolls, 
or poring over some favorite book in a quiet corner, 
they are as busy and happy as birds building nests. 
At the same time they are acquiring right ideals as 
to future home nests of their very own. 

The work of Pease Memorial House is in no sense 
that of an orphanage. Some of the children both of 



THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS 143 

whose parents are living come from remote moun- 
tain districts where there are very poor or no school 

advantages. By far the greater 
Large Work , , ir 1 1 

^ number are half orphans, whose 

mother or father does the utmost to support the 
child, thus keeping loving touch with her and look- 
ing to the future when they will again have a home 
together. This is a great incentive for the little girls 
to learn all they can about housekeeping and home- 
making. Last year $2,110.29 was paid by the parents 
toward the meeting of school expenses. 

2. The Home Industrial School 

Several lines of providential guidance led to the es- 
tablishment of the Home Industrial School. In 1870, 
Rev. L. M. Pease and his wife, 

The Hand of broken in health by their labors at 

irrovideiice 

the Five Points Mission in New 

York City, went to Asheville in search of health. 
Childless themselves, they were giving their lives to 
the service of childhood; and so they naturally be- 
came deeply interested in the children of the moun- 
tains. Business reverses frustrated the purpose they 
formed to found a school for these children, and they 
were compelled to open their home to boarders. In 
their Christian home many visitors, including the Rev. 
Thomas Lawrence, D.D., and Miss Elizabeth Boyd, 
afterwards the wife of the Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, 
D.D., became interested in their efforts in behalf of 
the mountain children, some of whom Mrs. Pease was 
training as helpers in the home. 

Miss Boyd, while spending the winter of 1884 in 



144 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

South Carolina, became deeply interested in the poor 
children near her, and gathered some of them about 
her and gave them lessons in kitchen-garden, and at 
the same time instructed them in the saving truths of 
the Scriptures. At the annual meeting of the Wom- 
an's Executive Committee in Saratoga in May of 
the same year, she made a fervent appeal for the 
opening of mission schools for the neglected children 
of the more destitute parts of the South. 

The appeal could not be granted until the General 
Assembly should enlarge the scope of the commit- 
tee's work and until funds should be provided. Later 
on these hindrances were removed, and the Board of 
Home Missions upon the authorization of a liberal 
friend took steps for the purchase of property. By 
an opportune and providential telegram sent the Board 
by Dr. Lawrence, a location in the mountains was 
chosen. Mr. and Mrs. Pease transferred to the Home 
Board their property, including their home and thirty- 
three acres in the suburbs of Asheville, reserving for 
themselves an annuity for their lifetime. Thus the 
location of the projected school was most happily de- 
cided, and a property valued at thirty thousand dollars 
was secured. 

Miss Florence Stephenson, of Butler, Pa., assistant 

principal in one of the public schools of Pittsburg, 

was appointed principal of the 

The Devotion of ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ position she 

has filled to the present with un- 
varying efficiency and success. Before the end of the 
year four other teachers were assisting her; while 




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tn 



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THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS 145 

Mr. and Mrs. Pease for six years devoted their entire 
time to the interests of the school. The Home In- 
dustrial was opened in the fall of 1887, ^^^ was soon 
filled with seventy boarders and forty day-pupils. 
The building has grown by successive additions until 
it now accommodates one hundred boarding-pupils 
and their eight teachers. Were the building three 
times its present size, it could be filled immediately by 
eager pupils. 

The school is filled with a home atmosphere in 
which a healthful, sane, and earnest Qiristian life is 

lived. The family life is per- 
"ih^ 1^?^®,°^ meated with the spirit of daily 

worship, Bible study, honest toil, 
and unselfish service that fill the busy round of each 
day's duties. The teachers have turned aside from 
higher salaries elsewhere to give themselves to this 
work, and they put their lives into their holy task. 
The making of wholesome and Christian home- 
makers is their constant aim. The school is an in- 
dustrial home. All the girls, as daughters in a home, 
engage in the household duties under direction of the 
household mothers. All are trained in kitchen-garden 
and cooking classes, in sewing, dressmaking, and in 
other domestic arts. Instruction in the fifth to the 
eighth common-school grades is provided. 

Scholarships of one hundred dollars each sustain 

the pupils, most of whom come 

i^f'. ^? , from the remote mountain dis- 

of the Scnool . ^ ^ /- • 1 

tricts. Last year $3,440 was paid 

in tuition and board by such as were able to contribute 



146 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

toward their own support ; while the entire cost of the 
school was $14,500. The hroad Appalachians and the 
honor of the Saviour and of his church receive rich 
returns from this investment in the making of new 
homes for the mountains. 

3. The Farm School 

In 1893 plans that had been maturing for at least 

two years were realized in the inception of a work 

for the boys and young men of 

Its Development ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ Carolina that was 

designed to be similar to that for girls already so well 
established in the Home Industrial School. The 
Home Board purchased a farm of four hundred and 
twenty acres lying on the beautiful Swannanoa, about 
nine miles from Asheville. The school was opened 
in November, 1894, with three instructors and twenty- 
five boys. Since that time the school has steadily ex- 
panded, until in 191 3 it reported property to the value 
of $62,000; total expenditures of the year, $18,734; 
and receipts from tuition, $1,852; while the value of 
farm and garden produce was estimated at three 
thousand dollars. Two hundred acres have been 
added to the original farm, and an electric lighting 
plant has been installed. 

The Farm School is first of all a "school" in which 
the boys are thoroughly instructed in the various 
grades of the common schools. 
Its Design r^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ''farm" sug- 

gests, it is an industrial school, planned to train its stu- 
dents especially as farmers, but also to some extent as 



THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS 147 

carpenters. The boys do most of the housekeeping 
also, a fact that ought largely to enhance their value 
in the matrimonial market. The third design of the 
school is not mentioned in its name, but it is all-per- 
vasive in its Hfe. That design is to make good Chris- 
tians as v^ell as good farmers. A Sabbath well spent, 
followed by a week of practical Christianity, includ- 
ing the reverent and daily study of the Bible, results 
in an overmastering Christian sentiment that, for ex- 
ample, has been manifested during the past years in 
very many ripening characters and in large numbers 
of professions of faith in Christ. 

The threefold design of the school is happily 
realized. A steady supply of sturdy lads and manly 

^ . , ^ . , younsf men is sent out into the Ap- 

Its Rich Fruitage . ?• vu xt, j 

^^ palachians with the deep impress 

of their manual, intellectual, and religious training 
manifest in all their being. Some go on to college, 
and enter the ministry and other professions; some 
become teachers, or enter business life; but, as was 
hoped, many more return to their homes to practice 
and pass on to others the new ideas and ideals with 
which their life in the Farm School has endowed 
them. Faithfully do the superintendent, J. P. Roger, 
M.D., and thirteen consecrated coworkers adminis- 
ter the trust for the church. The Farm School de- 
serves liberal support at the hands of the church it so 
admirably serves. 



148 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

4. The Normal and Collegiate Institute 

"In the founding of this school the Woman's Board 

have placed the keystone in the arch of their work in 

the mountains of the South." In 

The Keystone jg ^j^^j.^ ^^g established on the 

School , . i ^T T^ 

property given by Mr. rease to 

the Home Board an additional school, for which the 
growing educational work in the Appalachians had 
prepared the way and also created the necessity. 
There were already many mission schools, and there 
would be many more. These and the public schools 
were calling for teachers to the manner born. The 
church saw the opportunity to do a most efficient serv- 
ice to the mountains and the adjacent regions by pro- 
viding teachers thoroughly prepared to direct these 
schools. And so by the benevolence of philanthropic 
friends the keystone in the Appalachian Home Mis- 
sion school system was put into place; and the Nor- 
mal and Collegiate Institute was that keystone. 

Just across the lawn from the Home Industrial, an 
extensive four-story building was erected, which in 
1 91 3 provided a school home for 
Its Plant ^^^ hundred boarding students. 

At the entrance to the grounds stand the manse and 
the Elizabeth Boyd Memorial Chapel. The chapel 
was erected by Dr. Dodge, the president of the Board 
of Home Missions, as a memorial to his wife. In 
it gather for the Sabbath worship the girls of both 
schools and residents of the neighborhood. The 
church organization, bearing the name Oakland 







> 



a; 
'■+3 

a 
I— I 

0) 

'So 
O 

a 

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THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS 149 

Heights, is self-supporting. In such a commodious 
plant, then, the Normal and Collegiate Institute has 
enjoyed its twenty-one years of uninterrupted pros- 
perity under the principalship, first, of Dr. Lawrence, 
and then of Professor E. P. Childs. 

The girls of the Normal come from the four moun- 
tain states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten- 
nessee, and Kentucky, and an in- 

Its Clientage • u u 4. 

^ creasmg number each year enter 

from our own mountain schools conducted by the 
Woman's Board. In 1913, out of a total enrollment 
of 200 boarding pupils, sixty or more came from 
these elementary schools. The ages of the students 
range from fourteen to twenty-four years. The pu- 
pils come principally from the country, for the In- 
stitute is not designed to furnish "cheap education" 
to those who could easily obtain educational advan- 
tages elsewhere. 

There are sixteen teachers and officers in the fac- 
ulty. The teachers are from the best normals and 

„ , colleges of the country, and are 

Its Teachers „ ^ £ ^u 1 • 

well prepared for the work m 

which they are engaged. The result is an admirably 
conducted institution. 

There are four courses of study: (i) Normal, 
providing an excellent training for rural teachers es- 
pecially, and including a practice 

^^%^°Y^®^ school of five grades. (2) Col- 

of Study , . . ,. , , 

legiate, providmg thorough prepa- 
ration for the advanced women's colleges of the North 
and South. (3) Domestic Arts, including dressmak- 



150 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

ing and millinery. It is the intention to extend this 
to a two years' course in order to give sufficient train- 
ing for teachers of domestic arts. (4) Domestic Sci- 
ence, affording training in home economics. It is 
planned to make this also a two years' course for the 
training of teachers. While there is no separate reg- 
ular course in music, two competent teachers are em- 
ployed to give instruction in instrumental and vocal 
music, and emphasis is placed on normal training in 
this line for public-school teachers. Excellent choral 
work is done by the pupils. 

The domestic work of the school home is done by 

the pupils as a part of their training. By a system of 

work list assignments each girl is 

ome-ma mg given experience in every kind of 

home work — cooking, care of the dining-room, care 
of dormitories, the laundry, and the like. The prin- 
cipal purpose of the school is not simply to help in- 
dividuals but to train leaders and to send strong in- 
fluences for righteousness and sane living into many 
communities, and thus to affect the life of a multi- 
plied constituency. 

The religious character of the school is evident in 
all its activities. A strong Bible department is main- 
tained under a special teacher, at 
Religious Life present the pastor of the Oakland 

Heights Church, and systematic instruction is given 
throughout the four years of each course. A very 
active branch of the Young Women's Christian As- 
sociation renders material assistance in the Christian 
work of the school. The Association cabinet take 



THE ASHEVILLE SCHOOLS 151 

charge of the mission study classes, and frequently 
conduct the chapel exercises. The entire faculty 
frankly and persistently emphasize the Christian char- 
acter of the school, and every effort is made by them 
personally to bring all the pupils into a close personal 
relationship with the Christian activities of home and 
church. No one has yet graduated from the normal 
course who was not a professing Christian, and a 
very large majority of the graduates have been active 
workers in Christian Hnes. In 1913 all but five of 
tihe students were professing Christians. 

The girls who have graduated from the institution 
in these twenty years of its history have justified the 

hopes and plans of its founders 
The Outcome ^^^ ^^ ^jj ^^^ j^^^^ ^^^ ^ p^^.^ ^^ 

teachers and helpers in its activities. They have taken 
with them such a spirit of helpfulness that their in- 
fluence has been felt wherever they have gone. 
County superintendents highly esteem them as teach- 
ers, because of their character and earnestness as well 
as on account of their thorough preparation. Wher- 
ever these graduates go, they have a part in the work 
for general uplift, civic order, and public welfare. 
Quietly and without parade the cause of Christian 
education in the secondary grades of school work 
has been advanced throughout these mountain states 
by the Normal and Collegiate Institute. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Appalachian Power 

We have thus far, in our study, directed our atten- 
tion to the problem that the southern mountains pre- 
sent to the country in general and 
Problem, Power, ^^ ^j^^ Presbyterian Church in par- 
Promise . . ^ ^ 

ticular. The mountains, however, 

are much more than a problem; they are embodied 
power and they are stored-up promise. Before we 
take leave of our general theme, let us consider it 
from these additional points of view. And, first, let 
us consider what we may term Appalachian power, 
recapitulating and emphasizing those elements of that 
power which our study has already disclosed to us. 

Power and its conservation is nowadays an in- 
tensely popular topic in industrial and scientific cir- 
cles. Let it be water power, wave 
"Power'' a • j 

Popular Theme P°^"'' '"" P°"'7' ^™'^ P°^"' 
steam power, electrical power, 

radium power, or power of whatever kind, — it rivets 
the attention of the captains and privates of industry, 
and the doctors and students of science. New sources 
of political or economic strength and of national or 
sectional wealth and influence are subjects of live- 
liest interest to very many of our people. 

152 



APPALACHIAN POWER 153 

Mountains are not inert, powerless objects, born 

amid the throes of nature, and then petrified for the 

geologic ages. Mountains are the 

Mountains Are homes of men, and share positively 

Power-Plants - ^.i w ^ t ^x. ^ £ 

m the history of the race and of 

the world. To the lover of nature they are instinct 
with a life pecuHarly their own; in the midst of their 
reticent loneliness, to the attentive ear their heart- 
throb is audible. Their peaks may be personified by 
the poet and the orator, but they are persons to the 
seeing eye. Of Childe Harold it was said: 

"Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends," 

and where the mountains are full of men, they are 
full of all the kinds of physical and personal power 
that exist — all the kinds with which God has charged 
his terrestrial creation. 

Surely, then, we may fitly speak of Appalachian 
power, for the Appalachians rank, as we have seen, 
among the most noble and imperial 
Appalachian ^f earth's mountains. The utili- 

tarian age in which we live is fast 
waking up to a realization of the power, the dynamics, 
the potentiality, packed away in them as in a mighty 
storehouse of Nature's forces. Then appropriately 
may we sing of Appalachian power, and of the men 
who, driven by fate, first stored human power within 
these mountain fastnesses. 

That the southern highlands are full of natural, 
physical power is evident to the most superficial ob- 



.154 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

server. Their resources are so numerous and varied 
that it taxes even the fertile imagination of the pro- 

„ , , ^ fessional prospector and promoter 

Natural Power , ^i^ j. j.u 

adequately to convey to the un- 
initiated even a faint idea of their number and va- 
riety. 

The mountains are not mere scenery; they are also 
power. Ruskin says that ''mountains are the begin- 
ning and end of all natural scen- 
ery." They are at least the be- 
ginning of most forms of energy knov^n in the indus- 
trial world. The greater part of the water power in 
the Cis-Mississippian states south of the Ohio and of 
the Potomac originates in the heart of the southern 
Appalachians. Although few of the mountain streams 
are navigable before they leave the region of their 
birth, they have in them mighty resources of power 
that for countless ages have gone to waste so far as 
the material advantage of man is concerned. There 
is no better watered region in the world. Almost 
every ''hollow" of any length has its running water, 
for myriads of springs burst out at all elevations, and 
the streams that they form must descend many hun- 
dreds of feet before they reach the great rivers that 
bear their tide to the Gulf of Mexico or to the At- 
lantic Ocean. The amount of power generated by 
this descent is almost incalculable. In the writer's 
own country, the Little Tennessee River, while mak- 
ing its way through the Great Smokies out of the 
North Carolina mountains, turns upon its edge in 



APPALACHIAN POWER 155 

rock-walled narrows, and is no mean reminder of 
Niagara's whirling rapids; while enough unutilized 
power runs away down stream to provide, as will ere 
long be practically demonstrated, both power and il- 
lumination for great industries. Southey's word- 
painting of how the water comes down from Lodore 
in far Cumberlandshire might have described besides 
several minor creeks, two beautiful streams. Little 
River and Abram's Creek, that have both their source 
and their mouth within the borders of this same 
county, — a county over half the size of Rhode Island. 
Such streams are typical ; though not navigable, they 
are power-producers, and this power transmitted by 
electrical currents, will some day turn countless 
wheels of industry and profit. The smaller streams 
have many of them been utilized to turn the neigh- 
borhood mill. In Tuckaleechee Cove, in this same 
county of Blount, a great spring bursting from the 
mountainside turns a grist mill within one hundred 
feet of where it issues forth. The larger mountain 
streams have as a rule gone unharnessed. Now, how- 
ever, some of them are being harnessed, and manifest 
destiny will ere long add many more to the class of 
producers of hydro-electric power. 

As to steam-producing power, our mountains con- 
ceal deposits of coal large enough to supply the South 
for many ages, and to send, when 
Steam Power needed, large surpluses to the other 

sections of our country. As if with kind considera- 
tion for the convenience of men, it sometimes occurs 



156 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

that the coal and the iron can be taken from neigh- 
borly openings in the same mountainside. 

Estimates prepared by the United States Geological 
Survey in 1908 credit the Southern states with a coal 
area of 87,000 square miles as against an area of 
44,000 square miles for the combined seven principal 
coal-producing countries of Europe; and also assign 
to the Southern states a reserve supply of coal amount- 
ing to the almost unthinkable total of 530,000,000,000 
short tons as against 418,000,000,000 short tons for 
the combined seven European countries to which ref- 
erence was made. The principal coal fields of the 
South lie in the Appalachian region. Here, then, is 
stored up steam power for ages to come. 

So much of the purely mountain land is thin and 
steep that the mountaineer's saying is often justified: 

, ^ '*God Almighty never built this 

Mineral Resources 4. - ^ ^ r r ^ti. 

—mountam land for farmmg. But 

dig down beneath the surface and you will find ex- 
haustless quantities of coal, as we have already seen, 
and of valuable marbles, and phosphate rock, and of 
most of the useful minerals — iron, zinc, lead, copper, 
bauxite, salt, and the like; while the natural gas and 
petroleum fields have now added new sources of 
power to our already long inventory of such re- 
sources. West Virginia, in 191 1, gave the nation 
mineral products to the value of $105,958,000, over 
one-fourth of the mineral products of the entire 
South. The abundant presence of the minerals that 
are a necessity to all the industries indicates that the 



APPALACHIAN POWER 157 

Appalachians are destined to be a great manufactur- 
ing district. 

In spite of cruel waste in many parts of the south- 
ern mountains, the forests are still of vast extent. 
In the writer's own county, some 
Timber Supply lumbermen purchased seventy 
thousand acres of virgin forests, and are keeping their 
own railroad busy shipping out the product ; and yet 
they assure us that it will take from twenty to twenty- 
five years to cull the large timber from their posses- 
sions, and that at the end of that period there will be 
another growth of trees ready for their harvesting. 
There is home-making power in our great forests. 
About twelve per cent, of the 75,000,000 acres in the 
southern mountains are covered with forests of vir- 
gin growth. The Forestry Bureau reports a total of 
58,583,000 Appalachian acres, however, as being tim- 
bered land. Unhappily large deadenings are still some- 
times seen, even in these days of high-priced lumber. 
The mountains are, nevertheless, a storehouse of tim- 
ber supply for the nation. 

Although a mountainous country, the southern Ap- 
palachian region is also a farming country. The gov- 
ernment estimates that 23,310,000 
Farm Prodncts acres, or 36,000 square miles of 
the region, are non-agricultural. Of this area 9,900,- 
000 acres lie above an altitude of 2,500 feet, and 
54,000 acres above an altitude of 5,000 feet. About 
two-thirds, then, or an area of 74,000 square miles, is 
agricultural. While the soil in the valleys is much of 
it fertile, it is also true that the purely mountain soils, 



158 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

especially on the eastern borders of the valley, are 
capable of sustaining a good population. Says Dr. 
Glenn: "The agricultural lands of the Appalachian 
mountains are generally fertile, and, if wisely hand- 
died, will support safely and permanently a much 
greater population than now inhabits the region." 
Where proper methods of tillage and rotation of di- 
versified crops are employed, Appalachian farming, 
favored above most of the world by seasonable rains 
and abundant sunshine, has its full share of prosper- 
ity. No section need import less than should the 
southern Appalachian region. It grows practically all 
it needs. The future possibilities of fruit-growing 
and stock-raising are also very great. 

The mountain breezes furnish another kind of 
power when by ozone and oxygen and electrical en- 
ergy they contribute to the health 
^^ of human nerves and muscles and 

the vigor of human heads and hearts and hands. A 
naturally strong and sturdy race inhabit the Appa- 
lachians, and they are capable of great endurance. 
Were it not for preventable diseases, due largely to 
their lack of information regarding the origin of such 
diseases, the vital statistics of the region would be 
unexcelled on the earth. All that nature could do in 
providing pure water and pure air has been done, and 
the result is good appetites by day and sound sleep by 
night; and, in short, the development of a race of 
tenacious constitution and large reserve of physical 
endurance. 




o 



o 
o 






> 






APPALACHIAN POWER 159 

Now, all these various forms of energy belong not 

to some single mountain peak, some Japanese lone 

sentinel, Fuji-yama, or a Sicilian 

Vast Extent JEtna. or a Neapolitan Vesuvius, 

of This Power , , ^ • 1 , . .u 4. 

but to a mighty system that ex- 
tends over vast areas of nine southern states. The 
Appalachians are examples of Nature's mammoth 
sculpturing like that seen in the Alps and Himalayas. 
They cover, as we have already seen, a vast region 
approximately six hundred miles long by two hun- 
dred miles wide, and contain one hundred and ten 
thousand square miles. This royal domain is three 
and a half times as large as are the Highlands of 
Scotland with all the Lowlands thrown in; six and a 
half times as large as Switzerland with all her many 
hundreds of snowy peaks; as large as the Alps and 
Apennines and sunny plains of Continental Italy ; and 
well-nigh as large as great Norway, land of fiord and 
mountain. And the various forms of power of which 
we have spoken are found in all this mighty region, 
and are not confined to one isolated mountain heap. 
No pent-up pinnacle contains these powers, but the 
whole boundless mountain range is theirs. 

The real power in the Appalachians that especially 
concerns us as Christian patriots is, of course, the 

human power, the power of the 

Above All, mountaineers. We are prospectors 

Human Power ^ ^ ^ ^ 

not for water power, steam power, 

mineral resources, timber supply, farm products, nor 

even for vital energy in itself considered. We are 

deeply interested in these matters as they affect the 



i6o THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

people of the mountains; but that which vitally con- 
cerns us is that higher form of energy, human power. 
The census bears witness to the great extent of this 
power. As already stated, in the two hundred and 

fifty-one counties that make up the 
In NuTnhGrs 

southern Appalachian region, in 

1910 there were 5,280,243 people. That number may 
look small when we recall the fact that a larger num- 
ber, to be exact, 5,578,334, — immigrants arrived at 
our shores from the Old World during the six years 
from 1907 to 1912; and the fact that twice that num- 
ber arrived during the decennium covered by the last 
census. But the number assumes its proper propor- 
tions when we realize that it far exceeds the total 
population of the colonies when they waged war for 
independence ; and that it almost equals the total popu- 
lation of the United States at the time of the census 
of 1800. 

As was seen in the chapter on *'The Southern 
Mountaineers," the population of our section is made 

up of three classes: (i) The 
In Unity nominal mountaineers or the 

dwellers in the cities and towns 
and on the better lands in the valleys and along the 
plateaus; (2) the typical mountaineers, isolated by 
their environment, retaining the rugged strength of 
their race; (3) the belated mountaineers, or the sub- 
merged and lowest class in the population. There is, 
however, a substantial unity in this variety that is a 
token of strength. There is great power in exercise 
in the first class; great power in reserve in the sec- 



APPALACHIAN POWER i6i 

ond class ; and great power buried and awaiting resur- 
rection in the third class. There is no special con- 
flict among the classes; they understand one another, 
and are ready for cooperation as time and training pre- 
pare them for it. There is potentiality in this unity 
in variety. It is an exemplification of what one of the 
denominations terms itself, "Unitas Fratrum." 

To have descended from the virile Scotch-Irish, 

English, Huguenot, and German races signifies the 

best possible racial heritage. Blood 

In Strength ^^^^^^ j^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ mountains 

of Race , n • • ^u . 

have, rlowmg m their vems, not 

much blue blood perhaps, but something that counts 
more yet in the making of American greatness, — a 
tide of rich red Teutonic and Celtic blood. There is 
stored up in that blood vigor and tenacity and en- 
durance that combine to make an endowment of 
masterful power for the men in whose veins it pul- 
sates. 

"Our ships were British oak, 
And hearts of oak our men." 

As we have seen, the salubrious climate contributes 
to the vital forces of the mountaineer. He has strong 
nerves and a strong body. He may 
Jf Bod^^^*^ be lank and lean, but he is tough 

and sinewy. The squirrel-hunter 
can hold out his old homemade twenty-five-pound 
rifle, and with unflinching nerve duplicate the best 
work of the best shot of the day. Whether he be- 
long to the immediate stock of Abraham Lincoln, An- 



i62 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

drew Jackson, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston or 
not, he belongs to their stalwart people, and looks it. 
The average height and weight of the southern Ap- 
palachian soldiers of the Union, as recorded by the 
recruiting officers, considerably exceeded that of the 
soldiers enlisted in any other section of the country. 

The southern mountaineers have a mental vigor 
that has arisen out of their heredity, their healthful 
climate, and their unexhausted 
f M*^^ power; a vigor that is refreshing 

to a patriot taking stock of our na- 
tional resources. Strong, alert, shrewd, logical, in- 
cisive, the genius of the mountaineer is of the keenest 
sort known in our nation. A close observer like 
Cassius, "he looks quite through the deeds of men." 
When you think him dreaming, his photographic and 
phonographic observation is recording all that is tak- 
ing place about him. Self-complacent visitors from 
civilization make an egregious blunder In their hasty 
inference from his taciturnity and seeming stolidity 
that the mountaineer is intellectually their inferior. 
In native ability he is fit to stand before princes. It 
has been said of him : "He may be illiterate, but he 
is not ignorant; he is not 'backward,' but he is unde- 
veloped." The common opinion of educators in the 
Appalachians is that, other things being equal, there 
is a peculiar strength of intellect and a quickness of 
perception among students from among the purely 
mountain people that exceeds that found among the 
dwellers in the flatwoods. 

The mountaineer has a keenness of insight and 



APPALACHIAN POWER 163 

throughsight that is refreshing to teachers and 
preachers. A picture illustrating a magazine article 
written by Mr. Roosevelt many years ago was enti- 
tled, "Which is the Bad Man?" It represented side 
by side a slouchy, walking-arsenal, but honest-faced 
cowboy, and a meek-looking, conventionally attired 
civilian whose degenerate face proclaimed him a 
sharper. Place side by side a self-satisfied and irre- 
proachably attired town dude and a gawky mountain 
rustic and propound the conundrum, "Which head 
contains the brains?" and many mountain workers al- 
ready have both hands up high to tell you the true 
answer. Addison would confirm their decision were 
he living, for his hand was in; he reported in "The 
Spectator" the results of a dissection of a "Beau's 
Head." 

A friend of the writer tells of a visit two Mormon 
elders made at a Cumberland mountain cabin. One 
of the saintly elders to all appearance dropped dead 
at the fence. The other did not lose his self-posses- 
sion, but calmly said to the mistress of the cabin : 
"Yes, he is dead; but I shall now show you that the 
Latter Day Saints have power on earth to raise the 
dead." Before he could take any steps toward dem- 
onstrating his divine legation, the mountain woman 
saw at a flash the attempted deception and the proper 
reductio ad absurdum with which to paralyze both 
deceiver and deception. She leaped into the cabin and 
seized a kettle of boiling water, and hurried back to 
empty it on the supposed corpse : "I reckon I kin 
raise the dead too," she cried; and she raised him in 



i64 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

short order. A lowlander will have to get up very 
early in the morning to get ahead of a highlander! 
Nature has compensated the mountain man for some 
material limitations by bestowing upon him a liberal 
amount of gray matter. Indeed it has been main- 
tained that his brain is the most perfect in form that 
is known. 

Our mountain folk possess also a mighty deposit 
of power in their pure Americanism in race, spirit, 

and historic development. Says a 
In Pure _ ^^^^^ Georgian : "In all the broad 

reach of this land of the free there 
is no other field so teeming with the possibilities of a 
clear-sighted, virile, well-balanced, glorious American- 
ism as is that to be found in the romantic Appa- 
lachian country." If the spirit of America is the spirit 
of liberty, then the mountaineers are the incarnation 
of that spirit. Independence has almost gone wild in 
the mountain wilderness. Tyranny has been left be- 
hind so far and so long that it has become an in- 
credible monster to their thinking. Could their 
tongues express the thoughts that arise to them, they 
might say: 

"We are watchers of a beacon 

Whose light must never die; 
We are guardians of an altar 

'Mid the silence of the sky: 
The rocks yield founts of courage, 

Struck forth as by thy rod. 
For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 

Our God, our father's God!" 



APPALACHIAN POWER 165 

He sees no earthly reason why, if he is called out 

of the mountains for any cause, he should not be the 

. peer of any man, "Lowland or 

T /^^"^ Highland, far or near." Such a 

Independence o , 1 • 

bcotch heritage he could never 

lose in the freedom of the hills. His independence 
is a passion. In the Civil War the mountaineer made 
a fierce fighter, and was an ideal soldier in all re- 
spects save one, — he would not remove his cap to 
any martinet, any more than did William Penn, in the 
olden day, to the king of England. He does not have 
to be educated to self-respect. He has this quality by 
inheritance. As one of them said: "We don't eat 
at nobody's second table." He resents the arrogance 
of wealth or position, and would rather die than sub- 
mit to tyranny. Sometimes it is even hard for him to 
yield due respect to the authority of the civil law when 
it comes in conflict with his individualism. There is 
strength in the spirit of individualism even if it does 
interfere with the community spirit. 

There is an asset of power, too, in Appalachian 

patriotism. Not long since the writer conducted a 

funeral in an old graveyard in 

in ±eryent Tuckaleechee Cove in his home 

Patriotism . o 1 i_ -r u 

county. Surely here, if ever, could 

the words of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard be 
true, — here among the mountaineers : 

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way," 



i56 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

But, no; the patriarch of the cove told me that in this 
modest yard lie buried soldiers of every vi^ar of the 
republic, — the Revolution, the Indian wars, the War 
of 1812, and the Mexican, the Civil, and the Spanish- 
American wars. The records of the yard even give 
the names of the soldiers. In the roster are the 
names of two of the cove boys who were once stu- 
dents of the writer, and who fell in battle while fol- 
lowing the flag in the far-away Philippines. And what 
is true of that churchyard is true of others in the 
same county^, and of large numbers throughout the" 
southern mountains. Wordsworth exults over the 
patriotism of a youth buried in "the Churchyard 
among the Mountains", about which he writes so 
sympathetically. Of his mountain soldier he said, as 
we may say of ours : 

"No braver youth 
Descended from Judea's heights, to march 
With righteous Joshua; or appeared in arms 
When Gideon blew the trumpet, soul-inflamed. 
And strong in hatred of idolatry." 

As we have seen in the chapter on 'The Service of the 
Mountaineers," the men of the mountains, at every 
opportunity, have hurried to answer the call of their 
country in time of war. Their fervent patriotism is 
an asset that the nation has learned to count upon. 
May it hereafter be needed, not on the field of bloody 
strife, but rather in the service of peace, in the up- 
building of the political, economic, and moral well- 
being of the nation! 



APPALACHIAN POWER 167 

Another element of power is found in their sturdy 

Protestantism. It is of the 1688 Londonderry type, 

and is red-hot and irreconcilable. 

Protestantism ^^^^' Protestantism is the great 

power plant of modern civilization. 
The map of Protestantism is the map of the world's 
power and progress. But it is a waste of time to 
emphasize the dynamics of Protestantism in national 
life, for all recognize it. Hospitable as America is to 
all creeds, it is historically a Protestant nation, and 
must welcome the unanimous help the five millions of 
the Protestant highlanders of the South will bring to 
the perpetuation of our national liberties and civili- 
zation. 

As has been said of the race of Shem, it may be 
affirmed of the mountain race, *'It has a genjus for 
_ religion." This is another inval- 

Religious^ Nature "^^^^ ^^^""""^ ^" *^^ mountaineer's 
strength of character. His faith 
in God and God's book is simple, hearty, childlike. 
And this is surely to be expected, for it is not a mere 
poetic fancy that 

"The mountains holier visions bring 

Than e'er in vales arise, 
As brightest sunshine bathes the wing 
That's nearest to the skies." 

Wordsworth could have said of our mountaineer as 
of his herdsman, *'In the mountains he did feel his 
faith." There are no indigenous infidels or agnostics 
in the Appalachians. By racial intuitions, hereditary 



i68 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

training, and mountain environment their belief in 
God and his religion is absolute, unapologetic, and 
controlling. In these days of trimming and hedging 
and apologizing and doubting, it is no small matter to 
find five millions of sturdy Americans having an un- 
questioning faith in divine things. 

The mountain man's faith is not merely intellectual 
or theoretical, but it takes strong hold of his think- 
ing, and, in many cases, of his life and conduct. The 
southern mountaineers are grave by nature. Their 
native ballads, like those of most mountain dwellers, 
are somewhat weird and are written in the minor key. 
The native character is a serious one. Nothing inter- 
ests a mountaineer audience so much as does a de- 
bate on some question of biblical interpretation or 
doctrinal dispute; and where the Spirit of God is 
moving on hearts, nothing holds the attention more 
fixedly than does a discussion of some point of Chris- 
tian duty. The one book that is read in the Appa- 
lachians more than all others combined is the Bible, 
and many readers have an intimate acquaintance with 
its contents. 

The mountaineer, then, has a strong religious na- 
ture. Too often, as everywhere else, this religious 
nature is dwarfed and misshapen by environment and 
natural depravity; but, though stunted and deformed, 
it often, by many a token that is recognized by the 
quick vision of sympathetic lovers of souls, proclaims 
its latent strength and future possibilities. There is 
always something responsive to appeal to, in the man 
of the mountains. 




> 



I — * 

OS 
> 



o 
u 

xi 
O 



O 



APPALACHIAN POWER 169 

The mountaineer lives the "simple life" in close 
touch with nature in its varied manifestations. From 
nature, but yet more from the 
zJ^.tP^P Scripture, and perhaps principally 

from strong heredity, he has ac- 
quired an absolute faith in a personal, omnipotent, om- 
niscient, and omnipresent God, who has to do with him 
in "all the good and ill that checker life." He be- 
lieves in the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus as the 
Saviour of the world. He has no doubt that Jesus 
will "come to judge the quick and the dead" ; while 
"the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, 
and the life everlasting" are unquestioned tenets of 
his creed. Such a simple but powerful faith issuing 
from the mountains will some day "remove moun- 
tains" from before the onmarching American peo- 
ple. 

The mountaineer has a resolute and dauntless will. 
What he wishes to do he will do without asking 

license. His will, in the absence of 

In Strong Will ^,. 1 • . r 

° worthier objects of concern, may 

have been exercised in matters of trifling import, and 

thus may have seemed to be mere personal caprice 

or stubbornness; but give it nobler objects to elicit its 

powers, and it will reveal those noble qualities of 

high purpose and indomitable perseverance that have 

filled the world with heroes and the world's arena 

with victors. The mountaineer is no invertebrate, 

but, if he thinks the occasion demands it, he will stand 

alone against the whole world. He is made of good 



lyo THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

staying stuff, of the kind that God and men like to 

employ when great deeds must be done. 

A grave but positive self-confidence is a typical 

highland temperament. The mountain man is not so 

much *'a man of cheerful yester- 

i^/^P^^?® days" as of "confident to-mor- 

Self-Conndence ,, t., . , , ^ . ^. 

rows. 1 his class characteristic 

will stand him mightily in hand when new times and 
new ideas arouse his slumbering ambitions. This 
confidence is not self-assertive or combative or ego- 
tistical, but is matter-of-fact and unconscious. The 
dweller in the hills has by intuition what others se- 
cure as the result of training and experience. He 
takes it for granted that what others do or have done, 
he can do. This quality, which is his by nature, is of 
untold advantage to him. It fills his efforts with the 
world-conquering characteristic of dogged persist- 
ence. When at last success crowns his efforts, he is 
satisfied, but not surprised. 

The various forms and manifestations of human 
power that have here been enumerated as embodied 
in the people of the southern Ap- 
p + ?r°^®^ palachians are, of course, often 

^ limited and handicapped by en- 

vironment. The isolated mountain region is a long 
way behind the times. The pioneer period in all its 
barren and rugged simplicity survives in many set- 
tlements of the mountains. 

"A pity it is," said one, "to spoil the naturalness 
of these belated pioneers by introducing the twentieth 



APPALACHIAN POWER 171 

century among them!" Yes, but naturalness, immo- 
bility, and superficial content are not the chief end of 

man. The only way to make a use- 
And Must fyj J. ^^^ ^^^^ jg ^^^^ ^^^ 

Be Released . ,. , 

wants, IS to enlighten it. We are 

not put into the world to enjoy it so much as to re- 
deem it. Christian culture may not be so picturesque 
as are pioneer survivals, but it is the necessary fruit- 
age of Christianity. Sentiment may say: "Let the 
mountaineers alone; they are content." Reason and 
the Spirit of the Master say : "Enlist them in service ; 
thus they will be useful. Release these imprisoned 
powers of body and mind and spirit; then will these 
powers be employed in fruitful service for humanity." 



CHAPTER XIV 
Appalachian Promise 

We have recognized the existence of great reservoirs 

of power pent up in the southern Appalachians. This 

power is tremulous with promise. 

A ± OTirioltt rj.^^ Appalachian region is beyond 

question as potential with promise 
as is any other section of our country. The promise 
here recognized on every side is an unmistakable one 
and might be thus summed up: All this largely un- 
utilized power will ere long be made available for its 
foreordained and larger uses. This promise is a four- 
fold one, having to do with the natural resources, the 
manhood, the religious life, and the nation-wide serv- 
ice of the mountains. The promise specifically relates 
to the Appalachians, but also overflows in blessing 
on the plain. 

The material development of the South, especially 
during the past few years, has been phenomenal. A 

new, confident, and energetic spirit 
1. Natural Power ^^^ taken possession of the people. 

The business slogan of the leaders 
in this industrial advance is: 'The South, the Na- 
tion's Greatest Asset." Vast amounts of capital from 

172 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 173 

other sections of the United States and from foreign 
countries are being invested in the exploitation of 
mining, lumbering, farming, and manufacturing en- 
terprises. The cry of the business world was once, 
''Go West!" It is now, ''Go South!" The Panama 
Canal changes the South from a frontier land to a 
central location in the Union. The mountain region 
with its hydro-electric and coal resources is the heart 
of it all. The mighty power locked up in the natural 
resources of the southern Appalachians will be devel- 
oped to a hitherto undreamed-of extent within the next 
few years. 

Much of the financial profit arising from this de- 
velopment of the natural resources of the mountains 
will go to the section where the in- 

a!!^1^1o!S.?„ vestors live ; but most of that profit 

Appalachia . • • .1 . 

will, after all, remam m the region 

that is being developed. Already even into the remote 
mountain regions there are penetrating those ele- 
ments the lack of which first produced the problem 
of the southern mountains, — namely, live neighbors, 
a varied society, incentive for labor, trade, means of 
communication, money, and therewith, schools and 
books and educated leaders. The development of the 
natural wealth of the section will vastly enrich it. 
Many judicious observers predict that the southern 
Appalachians will some day be another Pennsylvania. 
The war is long past; a spirit of brotherhood pre- 
vails; the convincing call of a delightful climate and 
of alluring business opportunities is everywhere 
heard ; the mountains have been rediscovered, and ere 



174 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

long will yield forth notable contributions to human 
comfort and gain. 

Investors from other sections of the country will 
reap rich returns from their investments in the new 
mountains. They will agree that 
Enncning their venture was the accepting of 

a good proposition. Part of the 
future financial service of the Appalachians will, how- 
ever, be indirect, as is that which it renders now in 
climate and meteorological ways, a service so great 
that our government has determined to make it per- 
petual by the establishment of the great Appalachian 
Mountain Forest Preserve. Part of the service will 
be that rendered by the development of "all that the 
mountain's sheltering bosom shields," — the vast re- 
sources so much needed by the nation at large ; while 
a most important part will, as we shall see, be that ren- 
dered by the hosts of stalwart and intelligent workers 
that will emerge from the woody heights to help 
carry forward the world's work. The entire country 
will be much enriched by the opening up of the long- 
hidden treasures of the southern highlands. 

While the promise, everywhere visible, of the de- 
velopment of the natural power stored up in the Ap- 
palachians is most noteworthy, of 
2. Manhood: f^r more significance to the real 

D^YdTed'''^^'' prosperity of our land is the 
promise arching the hills that the 
manhood, the human power of the mountains, is also 
destined to a similar and, it is hoped, a speedy develop- 
ment. Indeed that development is, in many places. 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 175 

already in progress. The men of the highlands are, 

at last, discovering themselves. They find that they 

are of value in the world's activities, and that they 

may have a worthy share, along with other men, in 

making things come to pass in their immediate world, 

and even out in the flatwoods. 

Mention has been made of the paralyzing influence 

of the lack of remuneration for labor expended. If 

there can be no adequate return 
By Material ^^^ j^^^ ^^^^^ ^jjj ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ 

of time, be little labor. Nowadays, 
however, the agents of numerous new enterprises are 
invading the former solitude of the mountains, and 
calling for men to work in those enterprises, and, an 
unheard-of thing! are offering for that labor a re- 
muneration that seems to the startled mountaineers 
a princely wage. In a few short weeks' experience in 
these new conditions, the mountaineers adapt them- 
selves promptly to the new world, and form a new 
estimate of themselves that will never thereafter be 
lost. The sluggard becomes industrious ; many former 
idlers even become energetic workers. And with reg- 
ular wages comes a higher estimate of their own 
worth in the world. And with the knowledge that 
they can accomplish tasks in a workmanlike way, 
there comes to some the ambition for leadership in 
the doing of the work that is to be done. And so it 
comes to pass that, out of a drone, the material 
progress amid the hills has created a man and even 
a leader of men. And the signs of the times give 



176 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

promise that this progress is to go on increasingly in 
the days just before us. 

While the progress of the section will rapidly de- 
velop manhood or human power among the moun- 
tains, the advance of education will 

Advance^*'''''^^ contribute even more notably to 
this development. Tennessee's ad- 
vance is typical of what is taking place among prac- 
tically all of the mountain states; within a few years 
the appropriation to the support of the public-school 
system has increased from a very unworthy sum to 
one-third of the total annual revenue of the state. A 
good beginning has been made throughout the Appa- 
lachians toward the general provision of high schools, 
so potent elsewhere in developing the latent possibili- 
ties of efficiency and leadership among young people. 
And everywhere the privileges afforded the youth of 
the hills by religious and other philanthropic schools 
will let loose imprisoned dynamics in hosts of ambi- 
tious sons and daughters of the uplands of the South. 
Mountain manhood will everywhere be developed. 

The Appalachian problem before the American 

church, as we have seen, may be thus epitomized: 

How are we to bring certain be- 

3. Christian: lated and submerged blood 

T, 1? e 1 J brothers of ours, our own kith and 
Problem Solved . ' , 

km, out into the completer enjoy- 
ment of twentieth century civilization and Christianity ? 
The writer often views God's rainbow outlined against 
the ponderous bulk of old Smoky, and rejoices in it as 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 177 

a new token of an old covenant of grace made by the 
Builder of the everlasting hills with the earth that he 
has so abundantly blessed. But clearer even than the 
sevenfold beauty of the bow are the everlasting prom- 
ises of God that span the mountains, cheering onward 
the united Church of God to its mission of service. 
As that church animated with the spirit of the Good 
Shepherd ''goes into the mountains and seeketh that 
sheep that is gone astray," does it not hear the Shep- 
herd say of that hundredth sheep, 'It is not the will 
of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these 
little ones should perish"? 

God loves the mountains. His Mount Moriahs be- 
gin to smoke with sacrifices in the early days of Gene- 
sis, and his Mount Zions, crowded 

for Mountains ^'* '}"' redeemed linger in the 

Apocalypse. He called his chosen 
lawgiver into the mountain-top to enter into the se- 
cret place of the Most High; and there out of the 
midst of the fire he spoke face to face with him and 
gave him the oracles of the law for all the coming 
ages. Moses sang of God as granting his theophan- 
ies amid the mountains: 

"Jehovah came from Sinai, 
And rose from Seir unto them. 
He shined forth from Mount Paran." 

At Mounts Lebanon, Nebo, and Carmel,— there God 
met his people and showed his glory. Jesus when on 
earth loved the mountains. He preached his great- 
est sermons to multitudes gathered on a mount ; he fed 



178 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

five thousand hungry men on a mount ; he spent nights 
in prayer on a mount; he was transfigured upon a 
mount; he told his disciples to meet him, after his 
resurrection, on a Galilean mount; and it was from 
the Mount of Olives that he ascended to his Father. 
It were treason to doubt that he will answer the 
prayers offered in his name in behalf of the coming 
of his kingdom amid the Appalachian mountains. 

There is no reason why the kingdom should not 
come there as really as in the lowlands. There are no 

obstacles in the hills that are not 
No Irremediable similar to those found elsewhere. 

The faults of the mountaineers are 
only such as are common to humanity. There are no 
sins that are peculiar to the Appalachians. Our ap- 
peal for the mountaineers is based not on their ex- 
trinsic vices but on their intrinsic virtues and possibili- 
ties. And yet there is an abundance of evil on the 
great hills, and it must be exorcised. In Jesus' days 
on earth the devil went into a high mountain, and he 
dared there to tempt even the Son of God. There 
was once in the Holy Land '*a herd of swine feeding 
on the mountain," and a legion of evil spirits entered 
them. And there is evil in our mountains as every- 
where else on earth ; and in their frank way some of 
our people have named their home places, "Hell for 
Sartin Creek," "Sodom," and "Devil's Fork" ; but even 
such localities can be redeemed and are being re- 
deemed. Some mountains are volcanoes, but God can 
draw their fires, and make them as fruitful as the 
slopes of Vesuvius. 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 179 

We have seen that the development of business en- 
terprise, and the perfecting of the school system may 
be confidently expected to make 
What Prevents ^j^^j^. invaluable and miracle-work- 
Will Remedy . ., . ^ , .. , , 

mg contributions to the enlighten- 
ment of the mountains. There remains then only the 
contribution that the various denominations of the 
Christian church are to make. The generous devel- 
opment of our training schools and colleges, the estab- 
lishment of industrial and vocational schools, and of 
a model church and Sabbath-school at every such cen- 
ter, and the development of the church into an ideal 
community center in which the spiritual life shall 
dominate everything and also take interest in every- 
thing that concerns the earthly as well as the spiritual 
welfare of the people of the neighborhood; and the 
carrying out of extension work from these centers into 
the contiguous territory ; — all this will be the mightiest 
service that the Presbyterian Church can render our 
kindred of the mountains. When the ground is thus 
thoroughly covered by our church and her sister 
churches, our third of the problem will be satisfac- 
torily solved in a short generation. 

Why so confident a statement? Because, for one 
reason, there is no special or peculiar problem in those 
sections where the Presbyterian Church and similar 
churches have occupied the field and have conducted 
continuous work; and the presumption is that the 
things for which we stand, — thrift, schools, and an 
educated ministry, — will remedy that which they 
would have prevented, had they been present. 



i8o THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

The original mountain stock was made up, as we 
have seen, very largely of Presbyterian Scotchmen 

and Scotch-Irishmen and noncon- 
What Sleeps ^^^^-^^ Englishmen, and also in- 

Will Awake 11, x , ^ 

eluded some Lutheran Germans, 

and a few French Huguenots. Even where the name 
"Presbyterian" has almost been forgotten — to our 
shame be it said — by these Macs of the mountains, the 
visitor will be invited to eat "Presbyterian bread," a 
kind of corn bread that is good though cold, and that 
was prepared by the foremothers on Saturday, so that 
they might not have to work on the Sabbath day. 
Occasionally some one will bring out for exhibition 
an heirloom copy of a "Confession of Faith" that had 
crossed the sea from Londonderry. An octogenarian 
once showed the writer such a copy which he pre- 
served in a little box of neat workmanship, a new ark 
of the covenant which he had made to contain it. Re- 
cently the writer met a mountain preacher whose 
grandfather was a Presbyterian elder in a cove where 
now Presbyterianism is only a tradition. It was grat- 
ifying to hear the brother emphasize most earnestly 
the duty of old-fashioned Sabbath-keeping. And this 
preacher is a representative of numberless similar 
instances of latent Presbyterianism with which the 
workers in the Appalachians are constantly meeting. 
Small wonder is it, in view of such facts, that many 
mountaineers when given the opportunity, gravitate 
rapidly toward Presbyterianism. We expect rever- 
sion to type in our work. Not, necessarily, that great 
numbers of those of Presbyterian descent will line up 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE i8i 

ecclesiastically with the church of their ancestors; 
that is not what our Church is especially concerned 
about; but that great hosts will adopt again, in what- 
ever may now be their church connection, the passion 
for education in the individual, the home, the pulpit, 
and the community, and the recognition of the im- 
perative necessity of home training in religious mat- 
ters, for which the old Church has always stood. 

The greatest Appalachian promise is to be found 
in the stock with which we have to do, and in the 
p^ . , extraordinary and really marvelous 

Rehabilitation ^^habilitating power that it pos- 
sesses. For this mountain stock is, 
indeed, capable of very rapid rehabilitation when fa- 
vorable conditions obtain. It took several generations 
to retrograde, but it requires only one to come back 
to the ancient patrimony. 

For nearly thirty years the writer has been watch- 
ing this miracle take place, as the mountain boys have 
entered the first preparatory year at Maryville Col- 
lege and have struggled manfully onward until, at the 
end of eight long years, some of the elect have left 
college the peers of any and able to hold their own 
in the best professional and technical schools of the 
land; while those that have spent only two or three 
years in school have gone back home transformed in 
thought and purpose, and destined to transform many 
others. A hundred times has he thought of the ad- 
vertiser's "Before taking" and "After taking." 

The boys and girls of the mountains are naturally 
quick, and have the strength of the hills in their hearts 



i82 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

and brains. As we have already said, it is the con- 
sensus of opinion among those that Rave taught them 
that they are, on the average, quicker and more alert 
than are the ordinary **flatwoods" country students. 
One telling suffices. Fox touches off this quality well : 
" 'Don't little boys down in the mountains ever say 
''sir" to their elders?' inquired the Major. 
" 'No,' said Chad ; 'no, sir,' he added gravely." 
Their ambition is easily aroused, and they will un- 
dergo great hardships to realize its object. They as- 
similate new ideas and adapt them- 

Keaay selves to new surroundins^s with a 

Assimilation , . , ,, ° , • 

celerity and an ease that are akin 

to magic. In Asheville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and 
other towns, there are many well-groomed and pros- 
perous business men that were born in cabin homes. 
And they would feel at home in the White House 
after a week or so. The writer used to be anxious 
about the students from the mountains when they en- 
tered college, lest they might feel ill at ease, or in- 
vite chaffing by manifest embarrassment, or lest they 
might become homesick. But long since he found that 
his concern was unnecessary. They are abundantly 
able to take care of themselves ; to conceal their em- 
barrassment when they experience any; and, when 
they decide to conquer their almost overmastering 
homesickness, speedily to make themselves as much at 
home in the college as if it were their "old cabin 
home." 

The fact is that the young man of the far moun- 
tain, when separated from his dwarfing environment. 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 183 

and aroused by ambition, is a most attractive charac- 
ter. The discerning soul is constrained to love him. 
He has drunk in the mountain air and water and scen- 
ery until he has partaken of their strong qualities. 

Help toward the solution of the religious problem 
of the mountains has come in most heartening en- 
thusiasm and zeal from the Church 
from Without without the limits of the southern 

Appalachians. Of the exceptional 
interest that our Church has taken in the highland 
field we have already spoken in detail. Our sister 
evangelical denominations in strong force are also tak- 
ing part with us in our common and patriotic ministry 
for the mountains. Last year, according to statistics 
compiled by Mr. Campbell, there were one hundred 
and ninety-six church and independent schools in the 
mountain work, of which forty-eight were connected 
with our church. Nine were independent schools, one 
was conducted by the Y. W. C. A., while the rest 
were conducted by the Baptist, Brethren (Dunkards), 
Christian, Congregational, Methodist Episcopal, 
Methodist Episcopal Church South, Protestant Epis- 
copal, Presbyterian Church in the United States, Re- 
formed Church of America, and United Presbyterian 
denominations. All the splendid service rendered in 
love to the cause of Christ among the mountaineers 
by these ecclesiastical and philanthropic organizations 
makes up a mighty contribution from without to the 
religious education of the hills. And all this does 
not take into account the contributions to the support 
of the ordinary church work made through the boards 



i84 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

of the various churches charged with the granting of 
such assistance. As the value of the mountains and 
the worth of the mountaineers become more generally 
recognized, we may expect this help from without to 
be increased for years to come, until the special prob- 
lems involved shall have been solved. 

The religious problem will, then, be solved partly 

by the help afforded by other sections of our country. 

The principal work will, however. 

Development ^^ ^^^^ ^ the sons of the moun- 

from Witmn ^ . ^, i ah ^i,^^ ^, «. 

tarns themselves. All that our 

mountain brethren ask at our hands is a ''chance." 
Give the choicest and noblest spirits among them the 
intellectual and religious training that they desire, 
and they will take care of their native hills. Already 
the elect youths trained in the various available insti- 
tutions are in charge of many of the schools and in 
control of many of the new enterprises that are being 
established in the mountains; and as the work ex- 
pands, the volunteers provided by all the training 
schools of the various churches at work in the moun- 
tains will be needed for the ushering in of the new 
day. 

The policy of the Presbyterian Church is the same 
at home and abroad; that is, to train up workers in 
every land and region to carry forward the work of 
evangelization among those to whom they are at- 
tached by ties of family and patriotism. Such labor- 
ers know the people and are known of them, and so 
meet with such a reception as can never be extended 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 185 

to those of alien birth, however kindly their heart or 
faithful their service. 

A fourth and final element of Appalachian promise 
is that of a future nation-wide service that will be 

rendered by the aroused and pur- 
4. National: pose-filled people of the moun- 

Future Nation- ^ . t^ . 

Wide Service "^^^ ^^^^ ^° ^^^^ ^ ^^^ 

cry" from the present isolation and 

inertia of the mountain folk to the position where 
they may helpfully serve the entire nation; but, to 
quote Fox's quotation of a mountaineer's measure of 
distance, it is, after all, only "a whoop and a holler" 
to that position, and a wide-awake and wide-visioned 
teacher can speedily lead them to it. There are men 
hardly yet in middle life, now leaders of important 
causes in the greatest cities of our nation, whose kin- 
dred still live in mountain cabins. What prepared 
them for this wide and responsible service was simply 
a thorough-going Christian education received in a 
brief but formative decade of their youth. 

The man who rears his family in the fear of God 

and with respect for civil government, and who in his 

home community champions the 

of law and order, belongs to the 
Home Guards upon whose vigilant devotion the wel- 
fare of the country at large must ever depend. Al- 
ready there are worthy hosts of such men in the Ap- 
palachians battling for the well-being of their homes 
and children; they have transformed disorderly com- 
munities into law-abiding ones; they have driven the 



i86 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

saloon from their mountain fastnesses ; and they are 
ready to stand manfully for whatever better things 
commend themselves to their judgments. Their num- 
ber will increase with the spread of education and 
especially of Christian education. The public prints 
have much to say of the belated survivals of lawless- 
ness appearing in the mountains, but they do not 
record the heroism displayed by the citizenship that is 
rapidly enthroning law throughout the hill-country, — 
the Home Guards of Appalachia. 

In view of what the fetter-loosed southern moun- 
taineer is capable of doing for his country, wisdom 

would counsel : Save him, not 
Reinforcements merely nor primarily for himself, 
for America . u u - ^-u i ^ ,. 

though he is as worthy of effort as 

is any other body on earth, but especially that he may 
help to save the Americans of coming days, from 
the mountain foot-hills to the distant seas. The ark 
containing man's hope once rested on an Oriental 
mountain. It may be that the ark of God resting on 
Appalachian domes may contain no small amount of 
the power and hope of the future church throughout 
our broad domains. Let all the churches of Christ 
press forward the work of Christian education in the 
Appalachians until the ark-rescued people that shall 
issue from those heights shall be men and women with 
a providential equipment for Christian service for the 
nation at large. Thus will Appalachian power be, as 
it is peculiarly fitted to be, a benediction to the far- 
thest lowlands of earth. 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 187 

Little as the nation now realizes it, the men of the 

mountain will in coming days be of immense help to 

the nation at large in its fight for 

Contributing ^^^^^^ reforms. This will be espe- 

Social Service • n ^ -^u ^ 4. ^.t, 

cially true with regard to the re- 
forms that directly concern the home and rural life. 
Take, for example, the cause of temperance. A very 
large majority of the people of the southern Appa- 
lachians are as thorough-going temperance people as 
are found in America. A fatal tendency on the part 
of many of the American people is to make hasty 
generalizations. A generation ago a hasty generaliza- 
tion was made by magazine readers, — most of our 
American people, — and all of us southern moun- 
taineers were classified as moonshiners, and much to 
our chagrin, and, we admit, somewhat to our indigna- 
tion, the traditional classification lingers. And yet in 
the days when there really were frequent moonshiners, 
there was never more than a corporal's guard of them 
compared with the rest of the people. At present 
there is just enough of the moonshine business sur- 
viving in the mountains to interest the revenue offi- 
cers whose fees are affected by it, and the romancers 
who can make such "fetching" copy regarding it. 

The splendid fact is that, while the gallant fight for 
the destruction of the legalized liquor traffic is still 
far from won in many more fa- 
Prohibition vored sections of our country, the 

Appalachia southern Appalachian region has 

almost freed itself from that traffic. The temperance 
map of the region is a luminous one. Almost all the 



i88 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

region that we are considering is under prohibition 
laws, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and 
Georgia have (191 3) state-wide prohibition. In the 
West Virginia election in which the prohibition 
amendment was adopted, the majority against the 
liquor traffic was overwhelming, the only county vot- 
ing against prohibition being Ohio County, on the Ohio 
river. In the North Carolina campaign, the mountain 
counties cast a much heavier vote against the saloon 
than did the lowland counties. In the Tennessee legis- 
lature the "hill billy" legislators were the ones who 
really passed and enforced the prohibition law. In 
Kentucky, where local option as yet prevails, only 
two of the thirty-six mountain counties are hospitable 
to the liquor trade, and those counties are controlled 
by cities located within their limits. None of the four 
Maryland mountain counties, however, have voted the 
saloon out of their borders ; but all four of the South 
Carolina counties are ''dry," and so are fourteen of 
the seventeen Alabama counties, and twenty-eight of 
the forty-two counties of Virginia. Of the two hun- 
dred and fifty-one mountain counties, two hundred 
and twenty-eight do not have legalized liquor selling 
within their borders. Only twenty-three counties, or 
one in eleven, have legalized liquor selling. 

The mountains have long had temperance men that 
have been terrific fighters. Inch by inch, while the 
world was too largely looking upon 
^ ^ the saloon as a necessary evil, these 
fighters have been advancing the lines of prohibi- 
tion, till now almost all of the Appalachian ter- 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 189 

ritory is ''dry" to the glory of God and the 
satisfaction of good men. In 1878, the writer, just 
out of college, was colporteur for the American Bible 
Society in a mountain county. In one corner of the 
otherwise fair county he was surprised to find the 
most God-forsaken civil district he has ever visited. 
There had been four recent murders in the district. 
Sixteen out of seventeen families visited in one day 
had no copy of the Scriptures. And yet, in such phe- 
nomenally unfavorable environment, he found a stal- 
wart young Methodist who almost unaided had taken 
handsome advantage of the peculiar but providential 
Tennessee law enacted the year before making un- 
lawful any saloon within four miles of an incorporated 
school not in an incorporated town. At some expense, 
and he was a very poor man, this unknown hero had 
secured the incorporation of a log cabin public school, 
and had thus made the liquor traffic an outlaw within 
a radius of four miles of the log cabin corporation. 
What he did at great and unquestioned personal risk 
and discomfort, he did out of his love for Christ. 
When solicitude was expressed regarding the danger 
he was in, he glanced anxiously at his young wife, 
but set his teeth together, and said: "I reckon I'll 
see it through." And he did. No wonder his county 
has been free from saloons for many years, and that 
his civil district was splendidly rehabilitated in much 
less than a generation. 

The mountaineers may be slow, but the lifetime of 
one generation has transformed them into a resolute 



I90 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

temperance army that will never allow the liquor 

traffic to find again a legal home among them. Their 

thoughtful leaders have seen the 

Victorious blis^hting influences of the whisky 

Fighting ^ ° ^ , , . , -1 .u • 

trade, and have united to rid their 

people of the malign mischief-maker. The young 
people trained in the mountain colleges, boarding- and 
day-schools of our Church and of other churches have 
been practically unanimous in their determined hos- 
tility to the saloon, and have in a few years multiplied 
and solidified the temperance sentiment in their home 
counties until it has become irresistible. Many former 
moonshiners and habitual drinkers have voted for pro- 
hibition laws, and many have become very effective 
and zealous temperance workers. 

Yes, the mountaineers of the near future will help 

the nation win many battles for temperance and other 

. social reforms. They, too, love 

^ ^ God and home and native land. 

Take courage, you who in many states are fighting 
your apparently death-struggle battles against an or- 
ganized and wealthy saloon-power upheld by de- 
praved Americans and by many as yet un-American- 
ized though naturalized foreign immigrants ! If you 
will but listen, you may hear the "tramp, tramp, 
tramp, the boys are marching" of Americans from 
the free hills, coming to share with you the contest 
and to join with you in the victory that awaits our 
common cause. Be assured that these stalwart recruits 
from "the land of the mountain and the glen" will 
stay in the fight to the finish. When the witches stir 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 191 

in their caldron Scotch-Irish blood, and John Bull 
blood, and a little Huguenot and German blood for 
seasoning, and then let the brew simmer in the moun- 
tains for a few generations, it is bound to make 
''double, double toil and trouble" for anybody that 
once excites that blood to indignant action. 

So, too, will the future Appalachians contribute of 

their power to the religious faith and work of the 

entire nation. Theirs, as we have 

on ri u 111? seen, is a simple and unquestioning: 

Christian Faith , .■ ^ ^ . ^ /., , 

faith. Our national faith needs 

quickening. To the faithful who are praying for that 
quickening there will be renewal of cheer and zeal 
when they see issuing from the schools and homes of 
the highlands groups of men and women who are fully 
persuaded that "God is, and that he is the rewarder 
of them that diligently seek him." Mountains have 
throughout the ages been the refuge of distressed 
faith. Lot obeyed God and escaped to the mountain 
lest he should be consumed. Rahab sent the spies for 
hiding to the mountain. Jesus told his followers that 
in a certain day those of them that were in Judea 
should escape to the mountain; and the author of the 
epistle to the Hebrews testified that many heroes of 
faith did wander in mountains and in dens and caves 
of the earth. But the best thing is that faith thrives 
in the hills. And it is quickened and rectified, and 
directed by the Christian education that the Church 
is giving through the schools and centers of illumi- 
nation of which we have spoken. And this sturdy 



192 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

faith of the hills will reinforce, through many work- 
ers and emigrants, the faith of the lowland. Already 
from the valleys of the highlands, an exhaustless 
storehouse of humanity, many thousands of families 
have gone out West and elsewhere and are in the 
churches of those sections. And right welcome is the 
reinforcement. 

The mountains of the future will not add merely to 
the Christian faith of the country at large, but will 
contribute far beyond their pro 
Contributing ^^^^ ^^ j^^ active, zealous, and en- 

Christian . ^, . . , x t . 

Workers ergetic Christian workers. Indeed 

parts of the Appalachians are al- 
ready doing so. For example, Maryville, the synodi- 
cal college of Tennessee, has thus far sent three hun- 
dred of its graduates into the ministry, besides some 
undergraduates; and during the past thirty-six years 
has sent out forty-eight foreign missionaries. More 
than thirty-five candidates for the ministry are now 
enrolled among its students. Tusculum has contributed 
one hundred and fifty-four of its alumni to the min- 
istry; and Washington also has sent forth large num- 
bers. And from these and the other schools of the 
mountains there are proceeding large and steady 
streams of Christian ministers, teachers, and other 
workers, who are serving the Church at home and 
abroad. And the signs of promise for an increase of 
such contributions are most encouraging. 

The more we study the problem of the seclusion of 
the people of the southern uplands, the more con- 










c/: 

o 



o 
Q 



a 

o 



o 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 193 

vinced we must be that the hand of God is in it, and 
that this manly race has been held in reserve by the 
Lord of Sabaoth to be thrown into 
Contributing: the continental fight for sound 

i^ Americanism and pure Christianity 

Xv6S6rV6S . 

at the psychological moment, in his 
"fullness of time," to help decide the battle for 
righteousness that is being waged for the entire na- 
tion. 

In the days of the American Revolution, the sons 
of the Appalachians, sons of Anak in size and valor, 

swept down from their mountain 
f m- -"^^^ eyries and conquered Ferguson and 

his men at Kings Mountain. In 
coming days, the mountaineer, like Tennyson's 
eagle, will sweep down to the modern field of oppor- 
tunity in the valley below. 

"Close to the sun in lonely lands 

Ringed with the azure world he stands. 
He watches from his mountain walls 
And like a thunderbolt he falls." 

And history will repeat itself. On America's great 
moral battlefield at a critical period the reserve power 
trained by the Church of Christ in the mountains will 
hurry to reinforce the army of God, and will, per- 
haps, in God's great mercy be a deciding influence in 
turning the tide of battle toward victory. And great 
will be the gratitude of the victors on that day of 
united deliverance. As when Barak of Mount Naph- 



194 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

tali swept down from Mount Tabor and delivered Is- 
rael from Jabin, king of Canaan, and Sisera, his cap- 
tain, the Church will celebrate the faith of the hero 
who thus ''wrought righteousness, waxed mighty in 
war, turned to flight armies of aliens." 

Surely men of virile lineage, and strong body, and 
intellect; embodying pure Americanism, personal in- 
dependence, fervent patriotism, and 

Kept for the sturdy Protestantism ; favored of 

Masters Use ,,. . , , i- • 

Heaven with a strong religious na- 
ture, and honoring Heaven with a simple faith; and 
in everything exemplifying strength of will and su- 
preme self-confidence, must be destined for conspicu- 
ous service not merely in their native Appalachians, 
but beyond in the great world-field wherever men of 
such caliber and character are needed by the kingdom 
of heaven. The miracle of the waters may be re- 
peated. Out of the mountain reservoirs flow ten 
thousand streams that unite to bless the lowlands with 
mighty rivers, and to provide refreshment and wealth 
for town and country. Out of the mountain reser- 
voirs of reserve strength and virility there may at no 
distant day proceed streams of living waters to make 
glad not merely plain and valley, but even the City of 
our God. 

Every morning, as the writer rises for his day's 
work, he looks out of his bedroom window, across the 
. . tops of Tennessee forests, upon the 

^ ^ glory of God as it is spread out in 

Chilhowee's proud length, and heaped up in the tow- 
ering piles of Old Thunderhead and Gregory's Bald. 



APPALACHIAN PROMISE 195 

And they are never the same Smokies that they were 
the day before. Throughout the year, kaleidoscoping 
every day and shifting every hour, a new panorama 
lies in majesty before delighted eyes. The geologist 
tells of the mighty metamorphosis of the Appalachi- 
ans that has taken place since the mountains were 
thrown up twelve thousand feet above the primeval 
plain. The daily and annual metamorphosis of light 
and shade, of brown and purple, of vegetation and 
snow, proclaims the infinity of the Builder of the 
mountains. 

As the delighted spectator drinks in the sublime in- 
spiration of the scene, he almost forgets the problem 

of the Appalachians, and thinks 
Problem Versus rather of their power and promise. 
Power and Promise God rolled those mountains up for 

the good of America; and, as we 
have seen, our American Congress has recognized 
this fact in providing for the vast Appalachian Forest 
Preserve, to be a blessing in all the future to all the 
cis-Mississippian country. So has God stored away 
in this great mountain reservoir of humanity five 
millions of sturdy race to be a source of refreshment 
and strength to the nation in trying days to come, the 
days of struggle to preserve our civil and religious 
institutions unimpaired in the Armageddon with 
which the hordes of undesirable Americans and un- 
Americanized immigrants are threatening our nation. 
Yes, the Appalachians are a power and a promise as 
well as a problem. The problem will be solved, and 



196 THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS 

when solved will be a means to the solution of other 

and wider problems, a pou sto on which the Christian 

Archimedes of the future will lift 
The Appalachian ^^^ j^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ America's 

Providence ^,. ^ , , . r 1, 

welfare toward their fuller con- 
summation. A day will come when the Christian 
philosopher and historian will tell not of the Appa- 
lachian problem, but of The Appalachian Provi- 
dence. 



APPENDIX 
I. School and Community Work 

The following tables will convey some idea of the 
Presbyterian school system and community centers of 
three of the five synods of our church in the southern 
mountains. The author has compiled the tables from 
information provided by the Home Board and by the 
authorities of the several institutions therein men- 
tioned. 

Some of the schools are controlled and conducted 
by the local presbyteries and synods ; some by boards 
of trustees, in which the majority of the members are 
required to be Presbyterians; most are conducted by 
the Woman's Board of Home Missions ; while a num- 
ber are directed by the cooperation of two of the agen- 
cies that have been mentioned. 

Pamphlets descriptive of such of the schools as are 
under the care of the Woman's Board of Home Mis- 
sions may be had upon application at the Board's 
rooms, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Informa- 
tion regarding any of the schools listed in the tables 
may be secured by correspondence with the schools. 

197 



198 



APPENDIX 



1. Synod op Kenttjckt. 



Teachers 

and 
Workers 

1913 



Value 

of 

Property 

1913 



No. of 

Pupils 

1913 



Colleges. 

♦fCentral University, embracing: 

(a) Center College, Danville, Ky.; 

(b) Preparatory School, Danville, Ky . ; 

(c) College of Dentistry, Louisville Ky . 
Kentucky College for Women, Danville, Ky . 

Pikeville, Pikeville, Ky 

Witherspoon College, Buckhorn, Ky 

Boarding-schools. 

Harlan, Harlan, Ky 

Langdon Memorial, Mt. Vernon, Ky 

Community Centers. 

Cortland, Ky. (Station) 

Hindman, Ky. (Station) 

Manchester, Ky. (Station) 

Manchester Home, Manchester, Ky. (Sta- 
tion) 

Total 



40 
19 
10 
11 



$880,000 

153,631 

75,000 

60,000 



15,100 
5,175 



2,342 
2,086 
3,318 

5,675 



94 



$1,192,327 



275 
226 
240 
296 



32 

62 



1,131 



* Not in the mountain section. 

t Controlled jointly by the Synods of Kentucky, U. S. and U. S. A. 



APPENDIX 



199 



2. Synod of Tennessee. 



Teachers 

and 
Workers 

1913 



Value 

of 

Property 

1913 



No. of 

Pupils 

1913 



Colleges. 

Maryville, Maryville, Tenn 

♦Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn . . . 

Tusculum, Greeneville, Tenn 

Washington, Washington College, Tenn .... 

Academies. 

Stanley McCormick, Burnsville, N. C 

Harold McCormick, Elizabethton, Tenn. . . . 

Boarding-schools. 

Normal and Collegiate Institute, Asheville, 
N. C 

Home Industrial School, and Pease Memorial 
House, Asheville, N. C 

Farm School, N. C 

Dorland Institute, Hot Springs, N. C 

Bell Institute, Walnut, N. C 

Laura Sunderland Memorial, Concord, N. C 

Mossop Memorial, Huntsville, Tenn 

Day-schools and Community Centers. 

Banks Creek, Cane River, N. C. (Station) . . 

Big Pine, N. C 

Jacks Creek, Day Book, N. C 

Laurel Field, White Rock, N. C. (Station) . . 

Little Pine, Marshall, N. C 

Pensacola, Athlone, N. C. (Station) 

Walnut Run, Marshall, N. C 

Walnut Spring, Marshall, N. C. (Station). .. 

Jewett, Grand View, Tenn. (Station) 

Juniper, Sevierville, Tenn 

Ozone, Tenn 

Rocky Ford, Flag Pond, Tenn 

Brittain's Cove, Weaverville, N. C 

Marshall District, Marshall, N. C 

Rock Creek, Irwin, Tenn 

Sycamore, Sneedville, Tenn 

Vardy, Sneedville, Tenn 

Total 



39 

16 

18 

7 



16 

9 
14 
12 

5 

6 

4 



1 
2 
2 
14 
2 
1 
2 
2 
2 
2 
1 
2 
1 
3 
1 
1 
1 



$826,835 
355,500 
290,205 
200,000 



51,300 
10,000 



150,000 

52,650 
62,850 
46,485 
17,075 
22,600 
9,623 



1,910 
2,415 
1,900 
19,475 
3,640 
1,725 
3,050 
3,125 
1,100 
3,530 
1,733 
2,380 



7,550 
500 

2,085 
761 



199 



$2,152,002 



702 
360 
192 
122 



193 
130 



294 

167 
160 
181 
100 
76 
31 



64 
72 
42 

200 
94 
60 
74 
34 
53 

120 
49 
98 

tio 

"t27' 
"t25" 



3,730 



* Not in mountain section, 
t Industrial pupils only. 



200 



APPENDIX 



3. Synod of West Vibginia. 



Teachers 

and 
Workers 

1913 



Value 

of 

Property 

1913 



No. of 

Pupils 

1913 



College. 

♦Davis and Elkins, EUdns, W. Va 

Boarding-school. 

Pattie Stockdale Memorial, Lawson, W. Va 

Community Centers. 

Brush Creek, Cabell, W. Va 

Clear Creek, W. Va 

Dorothy, W. Va 

Dry Creek, W.Va 

Jarrolds Valley, W. Va 

Total 

Total of the three Synods . . . . 



10 



22 
315 



$201,285 



17.100 



1.400 
1,500 



1,395 
1,375 



$224,045 
$3,568,374 



134 



72 



tl6 
t25 



tl8 



265 
5,126 



* Controlled by Presbyteries of Lexington and Winchester, U. S., and 
Synod of West Virginia, U. S. A. 
t Industrial pupils only. 



APPENDIX 



201 



II. Work of the Sabbath-school Board 

The following table sums up the work being done 
in the Appalachians by the Sabbath-school Depart- 
ment of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and 
Sabbath-school work: 



Synods 


S. S. under 
Care of 
S. S. Mis- 
sionaries 


Officers 

and 
Teachers 


Pupils in 
These 
Schools 


Presby. 

Chs. 

Organized 

Since 

1887 


No. of 
S. S. 
Mission- 
aries 


West Virginia 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 


90 

63 
127 


449 
239 
491 


3,909 
3,020 
6,659 


28 
22 
30 


3 
3 

7 


Total... 


280 


1.179 


13,588 


80 


13 



The average number of Sabbath-schools organized in the three synods 
each year since 1892 is ninety. 



III. Regular Church Work 

The author has compiled the following tabular view 
of the church work being done in the counties of the 
southern mountains by our branch of the Presbyterian 
Church. Only the churches and Sabbath-schools lo- 
cated in the mountain counties and only the ministers 
living within those counties are enumerated, those por- 
tions of overlapping presbyteries lying without the 
limits of the counties referred to having been care- 
fully excluded from the statistical table. The pres- 
byterial reports presented to the General Assembly 
of 19 1 3 are the basis of this summary. The work that 



202 



APPENDIX 



the Board of Freedmen conducts among the colored 
people is not included in this table. 



state 


•2 

g 

••;3 

a 

§ 


Synod 


Presbytery 


E 

•a 


1 

o 
11 

O 


•.a 

2 

i 
;^ 

O 


i 

£ 

1 

• 


Maryland 


4 


Baltimore .... 


Part of Baltimore . . . 


10 


13 


1,619 


1,055 


West Virginia . . 


10 

14 

6 


West Virginia . 


All of Graf ton 

All of Parkersburg . . 
All of Wheeling 


13 
11 
20 


19 

28 
24 


2,486 
2,308 
5,420 


2,174 
3,491 
4,382 


Kentucky 


8 
10 


Kentucky .... 


Part of Ebenezer 

Part of Transylvania 


8 
8 


11 
15 


949 
913 


1,128 
1,499 


Tennessee 

(including Ga. 
and N. C.) 


10 
2 

3 
7 

4 
10 


Tennessee .... 

(including Ga. 
and N. C.) 


Part of Chattanooga 

(Tenn. and Ga.) 
Part of Cookeville. . . 

All of French Broad, 
N. C 


19 
5 

13 

14 

6 

30 


29 
10 

11 
23 
18 
46 


1,582 
292 

931 
1,385 

798 
4,333 


2,088 
343 

2,307 




All of Holston ...... 

Part of McMinnville 
All of Union 


1,683 

726 

3,992 


Alabama 


2 

5 

4 


Alabama 


Part of Birmingham 
— ^A 


12 


10 
22 
21 


830 

819 

1,046 


739 




All of Gadsden ..... 
Part of Huntsville. . . 


1,052 
556 


Virginia 




None 




























South Carolina . 




None . . . . 


























Total 


99 


5 


15 


188 


298 


25,711 


27,215 



